Brian Conlon never expected to farm marijuana.

When his tire-chip manufacturing business was shut down by the state a decade ago due to an improper storage allegation — a claim he is still fighting — he started work in a boiler room and retreated to a patch of land in Glenville he was allowed to keep through bankruptcy. He grew hay, and later planted crops like tomatoes and corn. In 2020, Conlon and his girlfriend Betsy Burrill took a leap and started what they thought would be a lucrative use of their small plot: hemp cultivation.

But the pair had started on hemp at just the wrong time, and with a flooded market in New York, they had trouble finding any processor who could pay for their ample, pungent crop. Then, this past winter, Conlon was watching the news when he heard Gov. Kathy Hochul announce that current hemp farmers would get the state’s first conditional licenses to grow cannabis for recreational use.