Why Damian Fagon Needs Extra Black Folks to Turn into Hemp Farmers

Growing hemp is a taboo subject in the United States, especially in non-white communities.

Not only are there barriers to entry for non-white communities to learn about hemp growing, but there is also a strong negative stigma associated with blacks and hemp (or cannabis), part of the generational “war on drugs” in America United States.

Damian Fagon, the founder of GuleybeanHe wants to change the script and share his knowledge of growing hemp so more people, especially blacks and browns, can access the multi-billion dollar opportunity hemp has to offer.

With insights from Buffer’s Small Business, Big Lessons Podcast Episode Eight and the accompanying unpublished interview, Damian shared his journey from hemp farmer to teacher, to head of the Business Accelerator and the economic background of why he is so focused on encouraging people to become hemp farmers.

Damian Fagon, founder of Gullybean

Finding agriculture and meeting challenges

After years in the Peace Corps in Guatemala and several others in Washington DC in the State Department, Damian Fagon wanted a change.

Instead of focusing exclusively on diplomacy, he wanted to work in business development. That move took him to New York City, where he received his Masters of Public Administration from the Columbia School for International and Public Affairs (SIPA). While there, he said he has balanced business education with political work and has been specifically focused on learning how to help farmers get better yields from their crops. His goal was to return to Guatemala and other South American countries to aid economic development through agriculture.

Damian realized that while the medical cannabis market is quite large (around $ 5 billion in the United States), it pales in comparison to other types of crops. However, the option for hemp plants, he said, has several other uses from textiles to plastic alternatives. But there is a central problem: the war on drugs.

“The problem with the crop and the genetics we have access to is that the United States has spent the past 80 years federally banning the research and cultivation of hemp plants,” said Damian.

After graduating from Columbia, Damian found investors in Philadelphia who would support him on a hemp farm in rural South Carolina. Unfortunately the harvest failed and Damian returned to New York City.

Determined to find things out, Damian spent a great deal of time – and money – learning the basics of growing hemp from consultants in states that had legalized recreational cannabis. As he flew around paying consultants, he couldn’t help but notice how protected that knowledge really was.

“The people who have had access to growing cannabis own farms and land, and they live in communities with very traditional agricultural roots,” said Damian. “And only 2% of farmers at the national level are black, so the differences that already existed in agriculture and access to land are only compounded when it comes to cannabis.”

After learning more about growing hemp and cannabis, he started a business in the Hudson Valley, New York. Unfortunately, however, he had to grapple with significant challenges in order to find his way around as a non-white person (and immigrant to the city) in a region that is mostly white and has been sedentary for generations.

“I’m not saying that all people in these communities are racist, but they don’t have a lot of experience with different conversations, different engagements,” said Damian. “There, too, not many immigrants move outside. So this challenge is very real and very, very personal. “

From agriculture to starting a business

After Damian successfully tackled hemp cultivation in the Hudson Valley, he wanted to use his knowledge to have greater economic impact for blacks and browns in urban areas.

He initially taught at Medgar Evers College, a historically black college (HBCU) in Brooklyn. He not only taught the agricultural tools of agriculture, but also brought in the commercial side, especially the possibilities in hemp and cannabis cultivation.

“I’m going to be teaching horticulture, but much of it will be a broader discussion of the business opportunities in the cannabis supply chain so people can actually see it as it exists in other states and identify places to position themselves where. to make them money [or] start a company, ”said Damian.

Second, he started work on a much larger project in the Bronx: a hemp business incubator.

“The idea with this project is specifically to create a facility and an environment where interested people in the Bronx – entrepreneurs, formerly incarcerated people who used to grow cannabis in the basements of public housing in the Bronx and arrested for it – have access these people have our facility, rent equipment, and start their own cannabis businesses, ”said Damian.

The goals of this incubator, said Damian, are threefold:

1. Micro-culture capsules: These pods will allow people to rent equipment and space to legally grow hemp on a micro-scale.

“The facility will be designed so that breeders, especially first-time growers from the city, from the Bronx, [can] seek a micro-business license, ”said Damian.

2. Cannabis and hemp education: Disseminating knowledge about growing hemp, the economic opportunities behind it and the job opportunities for people who do not want to start a business right away. That arm, Damian said, is run by a nonprofit founded by Damian and his team.

“They have a lot of experience working with marginalized communities who were previously incarcerated, previously homeless, especially young people, and helped them find jobs in high-demand industries,” said Damian.

3. A company in the incubator: Damian said this part is still being worked out but he wants the incubator to run its own hemp cultivation so that it has an active source of income to fund other activities.

“I want this facility to have its own business that makes it self-sufficient,” said Damian. “Of course there will be some profit sharing with those who come in and use the rooms to start their business, to pay the overheads, but I don’t want to start anything that relies on continued funding and sponsorship from donors and” corporate sponsors. “

A global impact waiting to be recognized

There are so many options for hemp and cannabis, whether medicinal or industrial, beyond recreational use. And Damian sees this potential as a massive opportunity to uplift historically impoverished nations.

“I saw this harvest as potentially transformative for the global south, particularly West Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Southeast Asia; Some of these regions are perfect for commercial cannabis growing, and I wanted to learn how to grow the plant, ”said Damian.

When he thinks about the reason he ended up growing hemp as a means of economic development, he associates it with his family and passion. Even the name Gullybean, for example, comes from a crop that his father still cultivates in his native Jamaica.

“I fell in love with farming because of Gullybean,” said Damian. “… With the legalization of cannabis by adults in New York, there has never been a better opportunity if you are interested in inclusive economic development [and] Generating wealth in low-income communities … there has never been a better time to focus on the cannabis market. “