How we came to be.

Welcome to Oak Ridges Hemp's website and its first explanatory writing. Here is a quick overview of our life experiences and how they influenced the direction that we are headed.

Hippocrates is famous for saying, "Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food." We have lived by this quote for nearly a decade now, (since hearing it) and tried to take it to a whole new level. In the era of "factory farming", conventional agricultural has depended on the petro-chemical industry. Because of this dependence, it has become easy to draw a correlation between the increase in chemical agriculture, and the decrease in public health and the health of the environment.

Being employed as Paramedics in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) since 2009, we have had a unique exposure to the effects of diet and lifestyle choices on the health of individuals. Arguably, a large majority of sicknesses we encounter are due to a few things... Diet, environment, exercise, and lifestyle choices. Today however, eating healthy doesn't just mean eating fruits and vegetables. One must go one step further and choose their products based on the environment they were grow in. This has given birth to the "food classes." Organic, free run, non GMO, are all great labels and provide an improvement in nutrition, land management, and decreased exposure to chemicals, however, it is my belief in thinking "organic" doesn't go far enough.

So why hemp? The detrimental health effects of long term pharmaceuticals to combat peoples lifestyle choices comes to mind when thinking about the benefits of cannabinoids. The synergistic effect of mixing various drugs, and the myriad of side effects from those drugs are plenty and attribute to many 911 calls. This is just one reason we are passionate about providing clean, nutrient dense hemp, in order to provide the best medicine for people wanting to improve their health, and limit their exposure to chemicals.

Motocross has been another influence on this journey... How? Talk to anyone that has ever been serious about racing, and they have probably been prescribed some sort of pain management. Many may still be on them. This is where my personal experience with cannabinoids comes in to play. The benefits are clear, and the advantages are nearly endless. If I didn't have access to cannabinoids, I may be dependent on narcotic drugs and may not be afforded my current position in life.

If we know that growing our food chemical free is beneficial, why wouldn't we want to grow medicine the same way? This is where the "hippy" side comes out. The reason farmers use chemicals is because it is "easier" and they believe it is more profitable in the long run. At one time it may have been. In the words of a wise man "I'm too poor to be cheap." I am not willing to spend thousands of dollars a year on chemicals to give me a "better yield" if that yield is going to potentially make my family sick, my crop sick, and my soil sick. If those products are slowly making my land less fertile, and causing me to have to apply more and more inputs, then that is bad business practice. Granted, it is hard work to establish these practices, but they soon begin to do much of the work for the farmer and give back to the land while sequestering carbon from our atmosphere.

We at Oak Ridges Hemp feel that each and every one of us share a duty to be Stewards of the land, whether you live in an apartment, or manage a 10,000 acre farm, you have a choice to make. The time to talk about it has passed, it is time to put action to the rhetoric! Not sure how you can help? Support those companies that are utilizing regenerative practices, no matter what products they are producing. Follow and support our journey of utilizing regenerative agriculture in order to provide people a healthy alternative to chemical pharmaceuticals, and improving the soil and the environment at the same time.

-Sean