Becoming Hudson Cannabis

How New York’s cannabis landscape changed everything.

The West Coast has long been regarded as the epicenter of cannabis culture in the US. Now, the green wave is washing over the Eastern Seaboard and, like the thundering waves of the Atlantic Ocean, the changing tide of legalization brings new opportunities to the Empire State. Nothing is more proof of the plant’s continued decentralization from the Emerald Triangle to New York than Berner’s Cookies brand opening in Herald Square in the heart of Manhattan.

But there’s another indicator. In the Hudson Valley, directly north of New York City, an area traditionally known for its orchards and farms, a newly minted industry is growing as quickly as the crop—cannabis.

Old Mud Creek Farm is part of the largest tract of organic farmland in the Hudson Valley. Owned by philanthropist Abby Rockefeller, the septuagenarian daughter of the late David and Peggy Rockefeller, the property is a large-scale organic regenerative farm that conducts carbon research to quantify and prove the results of regenerative organic agriculture as a potential solution for the climate crisis.

“By building healthy soil and utilizing regenerative agriculture techniques, we sequester more carbon on our farm than we release into the atmosphere,” co-founder Freya Dobson says. “​​We wouldn’t do this work if we didn’t think we could have a positive effect on the environment and the way people consume products that come from farms. That’s really at the forefront of everything we do.”