Few Minnesota Farmers Are Switching to Cannabis, OCM's Director Says

Minnesota's cannabis law was written partly to help new farmers get into the business. So far, few traditional farmers have taken that path, says Eric Taubel, executive director of the Office of Cannabis Management. "I don't think we've seen a ton of pickup from people who were in agriculture before switching over product lines," Taubel told Agweek's Noah Fish in an October 1 interview. Agweek published the story October 14, 2026.

Taubel spoke at Aune Hall in Rochester during a stop on OCM's statewide listening tour. Our recap of the Rochester listening tour covers the public meeting.

Why farmers are staying out

Agweek's reporting points to several barriers:

• Weather. "Minnesota's a little in a tough spot because we don't have a great outdoor growing season for cannabis," Taubel said.
• Acreage caps. Microbusiness cultivators can grow on no more than half an acre. "Even for the biggest cultivator, the limit's 2 acres, which is nothing in the agricultural world," he said.
• Federal lending. A landowner who leases land or a building to a licensed cultivator doesn't need a license. But Taubel said a lease can be hard to arrange when the property carries a mortgage or note from a federally insured bank, because those lenders may not want cannabis revenue tied to it.

Industrial hemp growers are the exception. Taubel called their move into cannabis "a pretty easy crossover." He said emerging farmers were one of the smaller groups of social equity applicants.

Indoor for retail, outdoor for extraction

Taubel said growers aiming at the retail flower market are mostly building indoors, where they can run more cycles and control quality. He expects an emerging group of outdoor cultivators to serve "the concentrate market, the extraction market that'll be used to make edibles and beverages and things like that." For now, Agweek reports, outdoor-grown flower is reaching retail shelves because supply is so tight. Taubel said that probably won't hold true years from now.

The numbers OCM shared

According to the Agweek report:

• OCM licensed 95 new cultivation sites this summer, many of them outdoors. That added roughly 200,000 to 300,000 more living plants to the system, and the office hopes those harvests bring prices down over the coming months.
• Minnesota retail flower sells for about $14.25 a gram, Taubel said. In Michigan, it's about $3.30.
• As of September 28, OCM had issued 386 licenses from 3,541 applications, and 1,225 applicants held preliminary approval. Microbusinesses held 280 of those licenses.

"Right now, it's like classic supply and demand, and we're in a place where, in the state, there's almost no supply, and so demand remains high," Taubel said.

October 12 update: 24 cultivator licenses is one category

OCM's October 12 application table lists 96 applicants for 50 available cultivator licenses, with 24 licenses issued. Social equity applicants received 22 of those issued licenses; general applicants received two. Another 19 cultivator applicants held preliminary approval. The figures are preliminary and can change.

These are the capped cultivator license category, not a count of all Minnesota growers or cultivation sites. Microbusiness and mezzobusiness licenses appear separately and can include cultivation. A license, a growing site and a living plant measure different things; the 95 new sites reported by Agweek cannot be compared directly with 24 cultivator licenses. Our Minnesota license data separates license categories, while the cultivation market page tracks the crop.

Across all cannabis license types, OCM reported 402 issued licenses, 1,214 preliminary approvals and 3,541 applicants on October 12. Those later figures supplement the September 28 snapshot above rather than correcting what Agweek reported for that earlier date.

Hemp applications are a separate, earlier snapshot

An April 16 Minnesota Department of Agriculture notice said about 30 people had applied to date for 2026 industrial hemp grower and processor licenses, compared with 84 applicants the prior year. Applications were still open until April 30.

That is neither a final 2026 total nor a grower-only count. It cannot establish that Minnesota hemp growers fell from 84 to 30. MDA's program covers industrial hemp growing and processing, separately from OCM adult-use cannabis licenses and hemp cannabinoid product sales. Read the hemp and cannabis THC distinction before combining those markets. For a separate consumer-market question, our hemp-drink study explanation walks through a national estimate without assigning it to Minnesota.

New friction: lights and smell

Taubel told Agweek that neighbors have complained about greenhouse and hoop-house lights that can be seen for miles, and that odor is a growing issue for local governments. "Cannabis is quite pungent, and so we're increasingly seeing people wrestle with what local ordinances may need to do around smells," he said. He added that at least one city near the Twin Cities has required buffer zones around cannabis cultivation.

What shoppers are saying

The limited grower base and tight supply described in Agweek's reporting provide context for price and selection complaints in the Hub's Signal Desk community sample. Among 2,733 Reddit comments in 18 selected threads, 451 (16.5%) matched price keywords and 184 (6.7%) matched out-of-stock or limited-product keywords; both topics appeared in all 18 threads. The Signal Desk also reviews 276 deduplicated Minnesota cannabis discussion posts from the Hub's broader archive, with post-level keyword findings reported separately from this comment study. These are community samples, not a representative shopper survey. The comments do not establish that the small number of traditional farmers entering cannabis caused prices or stock shortages.

If you want to work in a grow

Most new cultivation is indoors, and these are still jobs. Browse Minnesota cannabis cultivation jobs. Minnesota Cannabis College says registration is open for its 13-week Cultivation Track, which covers grow operations and the cultivator record-keeping required by Minn. Stat. 342.25. The license counts in the Agweek story are a news report, not a substitute for the license lookup. Cultivation figures the Hub tracks separately are on the cultivation market page. A named Itasca County harvest is covered in Cohasset cultivator starts first cannabis harvest.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Eric Taubel say few traditional farmers are growing cannabis?

He told Agweek that Minnesota does not have a great outdoor growing season for cannabis, that acreage caps run from half an acre for a microbusiness to 2 acres for the biggest cultivator, and that a lease can be hard when a property carries a mortgage from a federally insured bank.

Which farmers did Taubel say are the exception?

Industrial hemp growers. He called their move into cannabis "a pretty easy crossover." He said emerging farmers were one of the smaller groups of social equity applicants.

What flower price did Taubel give Agweek?

About $14.25 a gram in Minnesota, and about $3.30 a gram in Michigan.

How many new cultivation sites did OCM license this summer, according to Agweek?

95 new cultivation sites, many of them outdoors, adding roughly 200,000 to 300,000 more living plants. As of September 28, Agweek reported 386 licenses from 3,541 applications.

Sources

• Noah Fish, "Few farmers jumping into Minnesota cannabis, regulator says," Agweek, October 14, 2026: https://www.agweek.com/crops/other-crops/few-farmers-jumping-into-minnesota-cannabis-regulator-says
• MMJDaily, "Minnesota's traditional farmers largely bypassing cannabis cultivation, OCM director says": https://www.mmjdaily.com/article/9881976/minnesota-s-traditional-farmers-largely-bypassing-cannabis-cultivation-ocm-director-says/
• Minnesota Statutes, section 342.25: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/342.25

Agweek figures and quotes retain their original reporting dates. The October 12 update is checked against OCM's application table; the April 16 hemp snapshot is checked against MDA's notice. Neither measures a final statewide count of operating growers.