US (CO): Marijuana boom causes labour shortages, industry pushing for automation

In an article on Bloomberg, a restaurant owner is complaining that he has trouble finding workers. According to him, people are hard to find, because many of them like to work in the cannabis greenhouses where they are paid as much as 22 dollars per hour. "Wages can go this high but it is definitely not the average", commented Shane Hutto of Horticultural Solutions in Colorado. Hutto is the owner of a horticultural supply company that serves the budding greenhouse industry nationwide and has a good overview of the situation in the marijuana business. "Most cultivation workers make between $15-17/hr. A head-grower however can go much higher."

Shane confirms that the unemployment rate is decreasing in Colorado, but does not think that the wages are increasing as a result of this. "The wages are not increasing. I'm actually seeing fewer high paying wages than a year ago."

According to the marijuana entrepreneur, high wages and high labour costs are also affecting the cannabis industry. "Although we haven't seen a major drop in price since last fall when the outdoor crops came in, the wholesale price of cannabis is still under pressure. This is a reason that many growers are looking at automation of certain processes. This need for automation is also creating a surge in business for my company."

Hutto expects that the pressure on the wholesale market, shortage of workers and high wages can be relieved with automation. "Currently we see very little automation. Most facilities have automated watering but that's about it. Some facilities don't even have that. I'm pushing for more and more automation. I believe media preparation, propagation, transplanting, plant movement, fertigation, spacing and trellising systems should all currently be automated.

Hutto's company is offering services and equipment to automate these processes and tries to convince growers why they should invest in advanced horticultural automation. He said that a lot of technology from the conventional horticultural industry can be easily adapted for use in his industry. He is also in talks with horticultural automation companies on how to integrate their products into the cannabis industry. He mentions a large Dutch automation company which has recently introduced robots to de-leaf a tomato plant. "This machine can for example be used in Cannabis crops to automate leaf pruning."