HASTINGS, Minn. — It’s been a year and a half since Minnesota legalized cannabis, and cultivation is already underway for the Prairie Island Community.

Island Peži Cannabis, a native cannabis company, has officially opened a 13-acre site near Hastings.

The company has plans to produce more than 10,000 pounds of cannabis and cannabis extracts.

Owners of the company recently gave KARE 11 a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility.

The facility cultivates 20 unique strains of flower to create curated blends for production.

The cultivation process starts with “mother” plants, which are used to produce small starter plants that are grown underneath plastic domes for 10 days. These starter plants are then transplanted into small pots where they will continue growing for a few more weeks.

Once the plants reach a certain size, they are transferred to a soil medium, or transplanted into the ground so they can reach maturity. 

Yadel Mulugeta is a transplant himself. He’s the operations manager for the facility and is in charge of the cultivation side of the business.

“I worked with cannabis in Colorado and I learned a lot,” Mulugeta said.

“My wife is from Minnesota, and she always wanted to move here to be close to family. I always said, ‘Well, if you guys legalize cannabis, I’ll consider it.’”

Soon after cannabis was legalized in Minnesota, Mulugeta heard about the cannabis business that the Prairie Island Indian Community was hoping to build.

“I just liked the vision and the approach, the sustainability and how they view the land,” Mulugeta said.

Blake Johnson is the president of Prairie Island CBH Inc.,  which manages the cannabis campus near Hastings.

He says the entire facility was built around the idea of sustainability.

“We focused on the meaningful way of protecting Mother Earth and being able to preserve as much as possible,” Johnson said.

The campus was designed to save resources on production.

Johnson says the cannabis is cultivated, grown, dried, processed, and converted into products, all at the same site.

Prairie Island CBH Inc. partnered with Northstar Canna to create a production facility that is located in the same building where the plants are cultivated.

“We can create a high-quality product from seed, all the way to the shelf, into a retail product,” Northstar Canna co-owner Neil Hultgren said.

The products are then transported to the Island Pezi retail location in Welch, Minnesota, just a few miles down the road.

Johnson says they are hoping to add additional retail partners soon.