Hybrida Farms Runs Medical Cannabis Production on Costa Rica’s 98.6% Renewable Grid

The licensed Central American operation runs on a national grid. 98.6% renewable in 2025 and holds Costa Rica’s first cannabis medicine manufacturing license

CARTAGO, COSTA RICA, October 20, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Hybrida Farms, the company behind Costa Rica’s first medical cannabis export to the European Union in March 2026, today detailed how its Cartago valley operation is powered by one of the cleanest electricity grids in the world, and how its growth is creating skilled Costa Rican jobs. Every stage of production draws its electricity from a national grid that was 98.6% renewable in 2025.

The figure comes from the national utility, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE). Hydropower supplied about three quarters of it, wind and geothermal about 11% each, and thermal about 1.4%. The renewable share has topped 98% every year since 2015 except the drought years of 2023 and 2024.

That matters because pharmaceutical cannabis, grown under managed light, temperature and humidity, is among the most electricity-intensive crops, and much of the world’s licensed supply is grown indoors on fossil-heavy grids. Hybrida Farms grows in hybrid greenhouses at about 1,400 meters, where daylight and mild temperatures hold steady year round. It does not generate its own power. It plugs into Costa Rica.

“We chose Costa Rica for reasons that do not jump off a spreadsheet. The country spent decades building a renewable grid, a serious regulatory culture and an agricultural workforce that already exports to the most demanding markets on earth. Our job was to bring pharmaceutical discipline to it and invest in Costa Ricans. Every patient deserves to know their medicine was grown with that discipline, on clean power, by people whose work is building their own community. That is what leaves this valley. Clean power is only our starting point: our plan is to measure our full footprint and become independently certified carbon negative, in step with Costa Rica’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050.”
-D. Cree Crawford, President and CEO, Vantage Point Global, Corp., the U.S. investment group behind Hybrida Farms and Vantage Point Global Labs

How the platform works

Cultivation begins in a laboratory. Hybrida Farms’ in-house tissue culture laboratory propagates certified genetics under sterile conditions, producing uniform, pathogen-free starting plants with a documented genetic origin for every batch. Plants then move to positive-pressure greenhouses with central climate control. LED fixtures supplement the Costa Rican sun, keeping electricity demand well below that of an indoor facility. Precision drip fertigation meters water and nutrients at the root, using less water and losing less nutrient to runoff than open-field farming.

Clean genetics, filtered air and managed humidity limit the need for routine chemical treatment, and EU-GACP requires every input to be recorded against the batch. Third-party laboratories test every batch for potency and contaminants, and every export moves through Costa Rica’s VUCE 2.0 single window with chain-of-custody documentation.

“People assume the hard part of growing to a pharmaceutical standard is the plant. The hard part is control: what goes in, what comes out, and writing all of it down so an auditor in Europe can trace a gram back to a tissue culture flask. Here the daylight is consistent, the climate is forgiving, and I never have to think about where the electricity comes from.”
-Riley Shields, Head of Production, Hybrida Farms

From farm to medicine

On Aug. 19, 2026, the Ministry of Health issued the first license of its kind in Costa Rica, authorizing the group to manufacture cannabis-based medicines at Vantage Point Global Labs (Vantage Point Labs), its GMP laboratory in El Tejar, El Guarco. The laboratory receives EU-GACP flower from Hybrida Farms, then formulates, fills, tests and documents each batch.

What Hybrida Farms and Vantage Point Labs bring to the industry

Together the two companies offer something rare: one documented Western Hemisphere origin, where material never leaves the group between certified genetics and finished medicine. The assets are in place: an 18.2-hectare campus on the site of what was once the largest hydroponic tomato operation in Central America, renovated since 2023, with EU-GACP audits completed with high marks.

Licensed importers, distributors, manufacturers and API buyers get two supply lines from one traceable source: EU-GACP flower and raw cannabis material from Hybrida Farms, and concentrates, oils, medicinal syrups, oral tablets and contract manufacturing from Vantage Point Labs, as product registration permits.

The group holds MAG licenses to cultivate and produce psychoactive cannabis, a positive binding determination from the Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas (ICD), the Ministry of Health manufacturing license, a licensed pharmaceutical distributor and PROCOMER exporter registration.

Priority export markets are Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, followed by Poland, France, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Argentina. In the United States, where federal law allows cannabis imports only under Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) controls, Hybrida Farms has successfully moved cannabis material into the country for analytical testing through the DEA import permit process.

A commitment to Costa Rica

Clean power is one half of the company’s commitment to Costa Rica. The other is its people. Hybrida Farms is a U.S. investment run by a Costa Rican management team, and Vantage Point Global, Corp. has invested tens of millions of U.S. dollars in the Cartago valley. The group employs more than 85 people and projects hundreds more local positions as cultivation and manufacturing scale: skilled roles in science, quality, manufacturing and export logistics, filled locally.

The group holds a license to use Costa Rica’s national brand, Esencial Costa Rica, which recognizes sustainability and social progress. It backs sound regulation for the whole industry, not one company, and is working to bring registered cannabis medicines to Costa Rican patients as well as export markets.

“Our team comes from Cartago and the surrounding cantons, trained in tissue culture, precision irrigation and pharmaceutical documentation, doing work that did not exist in this country a few years ago. The medicine goes to a patient in Europe. The knowledge, the jobs, the salaries and the pride stay in Costa Rica.”
-Jorge Luis Calderón Chaves, General Manager, Hybrida Farms and Vantage Point Global CR S.A.

Vantage Point Global Media
Hybrida Farms
media@vantagepointglobal.co
Visit us on social media:
LinkedIn
Instagram
Facebook
TikTok

Hybrida Farms - Natural Costa Rican Medical Cannabis Cultivation and GMP Lab Group