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Farms operating on the ALR also receive substantial tax breaks, which are available to medical marijuana growers.

“(Village Farms International) is doing it strictly for the money, and if the provincial and federal governments are good with that, with them wanting to make lots of money and to take it out of this province, I don’t agree with that,” Jackson said.

Photo by Jason Payne / PNG

She also worries that Canadians will eventually have to rely solely on the United States for food supply.

Village Farms has entered into a joint venture with a Victoria-based licensed producer of marijuana to grow pot in the greenhouse beginning as early as next year, when recreational marijuana is expected to be legalized.

“The reason is that you look back at the vegetable industry, we used to have (profit) margins of 20 to 25 per cent, and now it’s down to six per cent,” Village Farms CEO Michael DeGiglio said from his Texas office.

Because NAFTA allows Mexican vegetables to be imported into Canada, Canadian growers can’t compete with the $8 a day workers get there, he said. With benefits and other expenses like the carbon tax, workers here cost the company $16 to $20 an hour.

“Revenues will be 10 to 15 times higher than with vegetables.”

And the company’s website says its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — a common business measurement — are expected to be 50 per cent.

“If the margins are that much better (with pot production), we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders,” said DeGiglio.