A planting machine crawled along the 100-acre Good Farm in Brant County, Ont. on a sunny June day, dropping seeds into the soil in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Behind the wheel was an employee of 48North Cannabis Corp. one wouldn’t usually expect: chief executive Charles Vennat.

“I joked with my team that I was the most expensive farmhand in southwestern Ontario,” said Vennat, who professes to keeping a pair of hiking boots in his car trunk for such impromptu jaunts.

“I’ve always had the leadership philosophy that you should never ask anybody to do a job in your company that you would not want to do yourself.”

Vennat, who visits the farm once a week during warm months, was at work on his company’s second crop of outdoor cannabis — a fairly new venture for licensed cannabis producers.

While many pot producers started out with massive indoor facilities to prepare for the legalization of cannabis in Canada, a handful have turned to outdoor cultivation in order to take advantage of savings from free sunlight and lower electricity and staffing costs.

Health Canada began handing out licenses to cultivate cannabis outside in 2019. Interest has since grown steadily.

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