Latin America’s biggest cannabis production facility, Boreal Uruguay, has closed its doors. The company, which inaugurated its plant amid great expectations in mid-2020, is now facing a labor conflict with its former employees, who will bring the company to court.
The closure comes at a time when the medical marihuana industry in Uruguay appears to have stalled. According to Uruguay’s Rural and Agroindustrial Workers’ Union, the staff was fired via Whatsapp. The “notice” was a message with a picture of a certificate of social security unenrollment.
Owned by Canadian capital and located in Colonia Garibaldi, over 500km from Montevideo, the company started operating in September 2020, during the peak of the pandemic. With 5,000 built square meters, a production capacity of up to 20 tonnes per week, and crops on 50 hectares, the firm was not only the largest in the region but also seemed to have the potential to compete globally, something that was cut short in the middle of the tough times the industry is facing.
“We measure the work by the harvests, which is the, let’s say, productive part of all this, and it was being carried out with fewer and fewer people each time. While the first harvest year there were 300 people, by the second harvest it was a lot less, I’d say just over 100,” Nicolás Ghigliazza, who worked as a maintenance technician, told local newspaper El Pueblo.
Union members are demanding compensation for the layoffs, and a legal case is working its way through Congress. But the Boreal Uruguay closure is symptomatic of a troubled market in Uruguay, a country at the forefront of cannabis legalization.
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