“We Understand Cultivation. Period.”Village Farms’ Strategy for Competing Globally

Burn After Reading The 30-second intel for operators and investors ⏱ 0:30

Village Farms says scale and low production cost are its edge in international cannabis. Its Delta, British Columbia facility spans more than 2.5 million square feet, and it has held EU-GMP certification for over four years.

• Operators: Export access depends on meeting each importing country's rules, not Canadian approval alone. Separate audits, fees and timelines add cost, and Germany is tightening enforcement on manufacturing, microbial limits and pesticides.
• Investors: Compliance infrastructure and low cultivation cost are positioned as moats for established exporters. Village Farms gave no production-cost figures, and Anand says Canada's layered taxes still squeeze licensed operators against the illicit market.
• Do now: Map the certification, audit and import-export permit requirements for each target export market, and tally their combined fees and timelines before pursuing any supply contract.

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In an exclusive interview with IgniteIt, Village Farms’ new government affairs chief Deepak Anand explains why production scale, low costs, and pharmaceutical standards could determine which cannabis companies succeed in international markets.

Growing cannabis is one thing. Producing it at industrial scale, meeting pharmaceutical standards, and selling it across borders is another.

For Village Farms International (NASDAQ: VFF), the distinction is central to its international strategy. The company believes that decades of experience in commercial agriculture, combined with large-scale cultivation infrastructure and regulatory certifications, give it an advantage in an increasingly competitive global cannabis industry.

“We understand cultivation. Period,” Deepak Anand, Village Farms’ vice president of government affairs, told IgniteIt in an exclusive interview.

“Whether it’s cannabis, tomatoes, cucumbers, whatever it may be, we have gotten that right.”

Anand, who joined Village Farms in September to oversee government affairs and regulatory strategy, argues that the company’s agricultural background matters as much as its cannabis licenses. With international medical markets expanding and importing countries imposing different production standards, the ability to grow consistently, control costs, and satisfy regulators is becoming an increasingly important commercial advantage.

The challenge, he explained, is that the international cannabis industry still lacks a common regulatory framework. A producer that meets the requirements of one country cannot assume those credentials will be accepted elsewhere.

For Village Farms, competing internationally means combining the economics of large-scale agriculture with the compliance obligations of pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Scale, Cost and the Economics of Cannabis Production

When asked to identify Village Farms’ greatest competitive advantages in Europe, Anand pointed to two factors.

“One, it’s scale, and two, it’s cost of production,” he said.

According to Anand, Village Farms cultivates cannabis across more than 2.5 million square feet at its Delta, British Columbia, facility. He described the operation as one of the largest EU-GMP-certified cannabis cultivation facilities in the industry.

The company’s production model builds on nearly four decades of experience in controlled-environment agriculture. Before converting its Canadian facilities to cannabis, Village Farms had developed expertise growing produce commercially, including tomatoes and cucumbers.

That background is particularly relevant in a sector where substantial investment in cultivation infrastructure has not always translated into profitable production.

“I think most people underappreciate the value of the experience that goes into cultivation of a crop at scale,” Anand said.

He noted that operating a 200,000-square-foot facility presents significant challenges, even before considering the complexities of a cultivation footprint ten times larger.

Cannabis producers must manage labor, environmental controls, plant health, crop consistency, energy consumption, and production schedules while maintaining the standards required by customers and regulators.

For Village Farms, Anand said, the combination of experience and production volume creates economies of scale that help lower costs.

He declined to disclose specific production-cost figures during the interview but described the company’s costs as particularly competitive because of its cultivation volume.

The distinction matters for international suppliers. Producers exporting medical cannabis must absorb cultivation and processing costs alongside certification, testing, transportation, and regulatory compliance expenses.

A lower cost of production can therefore provide greater flexibility when competing for supply contracts in markets where buyers are also weighing consistency, quality, and price.

Germany: A Market Where Compliance Determines Access

Germany offers a clear example of how international cannabis markets differ from domestic recreational markets.

Village Farms supplies bulk medical cannabis to companies operating in Germany, which then distribute products through the country’s pharmaceutical supply chain.

Anand explained that Village Farms’ role is primarily to meet the regulatory requirements needed to supply the market rather than conduct extensive lobbying or direct commercial activity within Germany.

The first major step was obtaining European Union Good Manufacturing Practice certification, commonly known as EU-GMP.

German inspectors visited the company’s Canadian facility to assess whether its operations met the applicable standards. According to Anand, Village Farms has maintained EU-GMP certification for more than four years.

That certification is an important prerequisite for participating in regulated European medical cannabis supply chains.

But certification alone does not make international trade straightforward.

Because cannabis remains controlled under international drug treaties, cross-border shipments must comply with the applicable medical or scientific trade requirements, including import and export authorizations.

Anand described a process in which the importing country must authorize the shipment, while Canada issues the corresponding export permit.

Canada’s domestic approval of a producer does not automatically establish eligibility to supply another country. The importing jurisdiction can impose its own quality, manufacturing, and product requirements.

For companies seeking access to Germany, that means demonstrating compliance before products can move through the supply chain.

The commercial implications are considerable. Market access depends not only on demand but also on a company’s ability to satisfy the regulatory requirements governing that demand.

The Cost of a Fragmented Global Market

For Anand, one of the greatest obstacles to international expansion is the lack of regulatory harmonization.

Village Farms must comply with different certification systems depending on the destination market, including Canadian production requirements, Israeli standards, and EU-GMP obligations associated with European and other international medical markets.

Each system can involve separate inspections, documentation, fees, and timelines.

“I have to go running to four different certifiers to go get them to audit me,” Anand said.

“They have their own fees, and they have their own timelines, and they don’t stick to each other.”

The resulting complexity adds costs and administrative demands for producers operating internationally.

It also creates an advantage for companies that have already invested in compliance infrastructure.

A business entering international markets for the first time must develop the processes, documentation, and expertise needed to satisfy multiple regulators. Established exporters can build on systems they have already implemented.

Village Farms’ strategy reflects that distinction: rather than treating compliance as an obligation addressed after production, it has made certification part of its competitive positioning.

Anand said Germany is among the most demanding markets because authorities are tightening enforcement of manufacturing requirements, microbial limits and pesticide standards.

“I’d say Germany is probably, if I was to rephrase the question, which is the most challenging market to deal with,” he said, citing its regulatory requirements.

For international suppliers, increasingly stringent oversight may raise compliance costs while also rewarding producers capable of consistently meeting pharmaceutical standards.

The Netherlands Adds a Different Kind of Experience

Village Farms’ European presence extends beyond exporting medical cannabis from Canada.

The company also operates cultivation facilities in the Netherlands, where it participates in the country’s regulated cannabis supply experiment.

Anand said Village Farms is among the ten companies authorized to supply participating Dutch coffeeshops and operates two facilities serving that market.

The Dutch program gives the company experience in a regulatory environment fundamentally different from Germany’s medical cannabis system.

In Germany, Village Farms works through medical cannabis supply chains. In the Netherlands, it supplies cannabis intended for regulated adult-use retail channels.

Anand argued that understanding exposure to different consumer expectations, product preferences, and distribution models is valuable for a company seeking to compete across multiple markets. The experience also illustrates why international cannabis expansion cannot be reduced to a single model.

A company may have the agricultural capacity to supply several countries, but the commercial structure and regulatory requirements of each market can vary substantially.

Medical Cannabis and the Case for Pharmaceutical Standards

Anand sees another important distinction between North America and Europe: how medical cannabis is regulated and distributed.

“I think what North America has done is we’ve done a really good job calling cannabis as medicine, and then we’ve done a really poor job treating it as medicine,” he said.

His criticism centers on the gap between describing cannabis as a medical product and regulating or distributing it through conventional pharmaceutical channels.

In much of North America, medical cannabis developed through specialized dispensary systems rather than the pharmacy-based structures commonly used for prescription medicines.

European medical cannabis markets have generally placed greater emphasis on pharmaceutical manufacturing standards and pharmacy distribution.

Anand believes that distinction should influence how regulators approach cannabis products.

He supports maintaining separate regulatory pathways for medical cannabis and adult-use products rather than applying identical manufacturing requirements to both.

“Should GMP be the gold standard for medical cannabis? I believe the answer is yes,” he said. “Should it be the gold standard for non-medical adult use? I think the answer is no.”

That position has significant implications for producers.

Pharmaceutical-grade manufacturing requirements can increase the cost and complexity of serving medical markets. But they also create a clearer framework for quality assurance and patient safety.

For companies such as Village Farms, which have invested in EU-GMP certification, these requirements can become an advantage when competing for international medical supply contracts.

Anand’s argument is not that every cannabis product should be regulated like a prescription medicine. Rather, he believes medical and adult-use markets should be treated as distinct categories, with standards appropriate to their intended purposes.

Canada’s Legalization Success Comes With an Economic Warning

Although Village Farms operates internationally, much of Anand’s government affairs work remains focused on Canada.

He considers the country’s federal legalization framework an important public-policy achievement, but argues that its economic structure needs further reform.

“Cannabis legalization is a process. It’s not an event,” he said.

In his assessment, Canada has demonstrated that a national legal cannabis system can function, but has not done enough to ensure that licensed businesses can compete effectively with the illicit market.

Taxation is a particular concern.

Anand criticized the cumulative burden of federal, provincial, and excise taxes, arguing that it reduces profitability and weakens the competitiveness of licensed operators.

The issue extends beyond the financial performance of individual companies.

If legal producers and retailers face costs that illicit suppliers avoid, governments risk undermining one of legalization’s central objectives: shifting consumers into regulated channels.

Anand also questioned Canada’s approach to cannabidiol, or CBD, which remains subject to cannabis-specific restrictions despite having a different risk profile from THC.

He argued that Canada’s regulatory framework has not created sufficient opportunities for CBD products to reach consumers through conventional retail channels, including pharmacies and grocery stores.

For countries considering new cannabis regulations, these are lessons worth examining.

Legalization can establish a lawful market without necessarily creating the commercial conditions needed for that market to flourish.

New Markets, Different Products

Beyond established destinations such as Germany and the United Kingdom, Anand identified Brazil, France, Poland and Spain as markets worth watching.

He was careful not to present those observations as a list of Village Farms’ planned investments or market entries.

Instead, he discussed broader changes in the international medical cannabis industry.

One trend he highlighted is the possibility that newer medical markets will favor pharmaceutical dosage forms over traditional cannabis flower.

Countries developing medical cannabis frameworks can examine the experiences of earlier markets and choose different approaches to product authorization, distribution and prescribing.

Anand suggested that capsules, tablets and other standardized formulations may play a larger role in some emerging markets.

That shift would affect the opportunities available to cultivators and manufacturers.

Companies competing internationally may increasingly need to consider not only where cannabis can be grown and exported, but also how it will be processed, formulated and supplied to patients.

The commercial opportunities are substantial, but they will not necessarily look alike across jurisdictions.

An Agricultural Business Competing in a Pharmaceutical Market

Village Farms’ international strategy rests on an unusual combination of capabilities.

Its origins are in commercial agriculture, where production efficiency, consistent quality and scale are fundamental. Its international medical cannabis business operates within a framework of pharmaceutical manufacturing standards, controlled-substance regulations, and country-specific market access requirements.

Anand’s comments suggest that the company views those capabilities as complementary rather than separate.

Cultivation expertise supports production efficiency. Regulatory certification makes access to international medical markets possible. Experience across Canada, Germany and the Netherlands provides knowledge of different commercial and regulatory systems.

None of those advantages eliminates competition, price pressure, or the costs associated with international expansion.

But together, they help explain why Village Farms believes it is positioned to compete as more countries develop regulated cannabis markets.

For cannabis operators and investors navigating these opportunities, IgniteIt’s Cannabis Capital & Policy Summit in Washington, D.C., on November 18 will bring together industry executives, policymakers, and investors to discuss the regulatory developments, investment strategies, and partnerships shaping the industry’s future. Secure your ticket and join the conversation.