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By Will Houston, Eureka Times-Standard

POSTED: 06/15/17, 1:39 PM PDT

The Washington, D.C., marijuana data analytics firm New Frontier is conducting a novel survey of Humboldt County’s cannabis farmers and how they are adapting to the advent of legalization.

“It helps us understand this enormously influential but currently not well understood market,” New Frontier’s Executive Vice President of Industry Analytics John Kagia said Wednesday. “If California is going to be the most important single cannabis market in the world and if Northern California is the single biggest supplier of the cannabis that is going to be sold in the state, then in order to understand California, you’ve got to understand what’s happening in Humboldt and surrounding counties.”

The firm has already begun conducting initial interviews with local cannabis farmers and hopes to have hundreds of others participate in the survey through interviews or by filling out an online or printed survey.

The survey is being conducted in collaboration with the business consulting firm Humboldt Green, Kagia said, and is assessing how farmers operate their farms, how the recent passage of new medical and recreational marijuana laws have changed their practices, and obtaining the farmers’ opinions on the changing regulatory landscape.

Kagia said this data will not only serve as a voice of the Emerald Triangle’s cannabis farming community, but also provide insight to cannabis investors and business owners about trends and opportunities in Northern California marijuana market.

“Because of the very long cannabis cultivation history in that region, we also think there is a very significant opportunity for that region to serve as a knowledge resource for other regions and other markets,” Kagia said. “Through this research we’re really looking to try to begin to understand the size, the scale and opportunities in that market.”

Since forming in 2014, New Frontier has performed other studies on California’s consumer demand for cannabis on a statewide level, but Kagia said engaging growers in the Emerald Triangle will be a first-time endeavor for the firm.

Kagia said the final survey results could be released as soon as July.

The survey is currently being finalized with Humboldt Green and more details on how to participate are expected to be released in the coming weeks, Kagia said.

“It’s a chance for the growers to be counted and to ensure that at a time when the market is going through such significant change, their participation in this study is just one of the ways they can ensure they get a seat at the table of this very significant opportunity,” Kagia said.