Snowbird Botanicals: Curating Happiness, one plant at a time.
All around the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont there are many family owned farms that bring a variety of goods to their local communities that in turn boost the local economy. One of these many farms happens to be Snowbird Botanicals in Barnet, VT. Snowbird Botanicals is a husband and wife owned craft CBD turned Cannabis farm, fueled by a passion for growing as naturally, and sustainably as possible for the community. They pride themselves on nurturing others and Mother Nature with their farming practices. Instead of just focusing on the final product, Snowbird Botanicals treats every point of the growing process as a work of art.
Snowbird Botanical’s Background
Snowbird Botanicals was established in 2020 and is run by Ivan Pudan and Cindy Pudan-Silva. Ivan's parents are from Trinidad & Tobago, an island in the Caribbean, and he was born and lived in Canada until he was 2 years old. He then moved with his parents to Trinidad & Tobago and lived there until he was 9 years old, when he then moved to Florida, where he eventually met Cindy. Ivan also graduated with his Bachelors Degree in Business Entrepreneurship at UCF in Florida. Cindy is hispanic and was born in brazil to 2 peruvian parents. She has lived in Canada, Florida and now Vermont. Cindy double majored in Political Science and Philosophy and has always used cannabis to manage her chronic pain.
Ivan and Cindy moved from Florida to Vermont to learn more about the cultivation process, and eventually fell in love with the farm lifestyle and Vermont as a whole..
From CBD to THC, and beyond
Snowbird Botanical’s farm is located on 15 acres of land, tucked away in the beautiful foothills of Barnet, VT where much of the landscape remains untouched by man. Ivan and Cindy believe in organic and sustainable farming practices and never use pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or non certified organic fertilizers of any kind. They started Snowbird Botanicals as a hemp farm making different CBD oils and salves. For Ivan and Cindy, hemp has been life changing in helping them manage chronic health conditions. Hemp also helped some of Ivan and Cindy’s close family members navigate their cancer treatment journeys.
Snowbird Botanicals was presented with the opportunity to join some business partners in a CBD venture in Vermont, and they joined in willingly, ready to be helping hands. For Ivan and Cindy, the timing worked out perfectly, as they were starting to get stretched thin in their business and were reaching a burnout. They hit the ground running with the venture and became quite successful. Once the cultivation of Marijuana became legal in Vermont, Ivan and Cindy put their foot into that ring as well, becoming a craft cultivator. They have kept their same mission as they had with their solely CBD business, which is to provide others with a beautiful product that will help them as much as it has helped Ivan and Cindy.
In a conversation with Ivan about his mission with this business, he stated “We’re growing cannabis, and trying to cultivate happiness on different levels. Both with our plants, and with how we’re living our lives. Homesteading, growing our food, using sustainable methods, and producing products we are proud of”.
Quality and Care Matters Most
Ivan and Cindy’s care for what they do is apparent in their products. Ivan stated that they “have the benefit of having a very close one on one relationship with our plants. We keep things very small batch to guarantee a certain level of quality”. This quality can be seen all the way up to packaging and manufacturing, with every pre-roll being done painstakingly by hand, to ensure the best smoke every time. They use all organic inputs, including collected rain water and integrated pest management to keep their plants happy, and keep a keen eye on them daily to be able to accurately assess the next steps of the growth cycle.
Snowbird Botanicals strive for perfection and run many trials constantly learning as much as they can. Ivan and Cindy are always optimizing and trying to set the bar as high as possible for their craft cannabis products (no pun intended). “We really feel every step in the process is an art”, Ivan states. They hope to bring terpene + cannabinoid rich plant products that help others as much as it’s helped them.
Ivan closes by saying “We’re very passionate about what we do and the lifestyle we get to live doing it, can’t really ask for anything more”.
Conclusion
Snowbird Botanicals is a staple of some of the craft cannabis farms in the Northeast Kingdom, and the care they put into their process is apparent in their final products. They produce beautiful, smokeable, works of art that are meant to be enjoyed and to help the local communities surrounding the Snowbird Botanicals Farm. Ivan and Cindy are a great example of how cultivators are curating and adding to an ever growing community and destigmatizing the bad name around marijuana and its culture. If you would like to learn more about Snowbird Botanicals, check out their website at Snowbirdbotanicals.com. If you are interested in buying some of their products, stop into Northeast Kannabis today and pick some up.
