It's the greenhouse that will make you green with envy but only a select few will be able to visit the Tasmanian Botanics processing facility — for security reasons.
The greenhouse has taken the latest construction ideas from around the world to streamline the production of medicinal cannabis for the Australian and export market.
And now it's all systems go to grow, after the Tasmanian company secured permits from the Office of Drug Control to cultivate and export medicinal cannabis.
"This puts our company as one of the frontrunners in the Australian medicinal cannabis industry," Tasmanian Botanics managing director, Tony Roberts, said.
"We started out 18 months ago with just one employee — myself — and now we could potentially employ over 150 additional staff to research, grow and process the plant.
"This is the first of three greenhouses we plan to build, and eventually the two future greenhouses will cover 10,000 square metres each."
The location of the facility cannot be disclosed and the security surrounding the processing plant is the strictest seen in any greenhouse anywhere in Tasmania.
Tasmanian Botanics is one of a number of companies in various Australian states looking to provide medicinal cannabis to the local and export markets.
"We hope to harvest our first crop in August and we have contracts in place to export the finished product to Europe," Mr Roberts said.
"In the greenhouse we are using the latest ebb-and-flow tables, the fertigation system is fully contained within the facility, and recycling is a priority.
"Currently we have the potential to produce 8 tonnes of dried flower annually, but we will increase that to 50 tonnes over the next five years."
For the regulators, processors, contractors and staff, medicinal cannabis is a brand new industry for Australia and the company said it had been a challenge to set it all up.
"It's been very frustrating at times getting the permits and licences approved in a timely manner as the regulators have been overwhelmed with the interest in the industry," Mr Roberts said.
"They totally underestimated the amount of applications they would get from potential processors, so it's been a big learning curve for everyone."
Being a fully integrated Tasmanian company means Tasmanian Botanics will be looking to launch its own branded production for distribution locally and around the world.
"Germany and other parts of Europe will be the first to receive our products, but certainly future markets in China and the rest of Asia will be on our radar," Mr Roberts said.
