Our Story

Caregiver helps South Dakota medical marijuana patient pack a preroll joint.

Working to Uplift Your Health & Wellness to New Heights

As a patient-focused organization and being the largest cannabis company in South Dakota, Genesis Farms aims to set the standard for expertise, quality, compassion, and innovation.

We are working urgently to dispense top-grade medical cannabis to eligible patients and caregivers. Genesis Farms is 100% South Dakota owned and operated.

Our Mission

To provide safe, stable access to high quality and affordable medical cannabis to patients across South Dakota.

  • Exterior of South Dakota marijuana grow facility in Box Elder.

    High Standards of Excellence

    Genesis Farms strives to be a reliable legal cannabis resource with a 7-acre world-class cannabis cultivation, manufacturing and distribution campus in Box Elder.

    Our vertically-integrated, seed-to-sale enterprise provides a robust and efficient supply-chain for cannabis cultivation, production and distribution to ensure a wide variety of product availability.

    Through the use of LED lighting and top-of-the-line greenhouses and environmental control systems, we employ standards of excellence across all of our operations to ensure patients safely receive superior quality products.

  • We Take Our Role Seriously

    Across nine state-wide dispensaries, Genesis Farms aims to be South Dakota’s trusted leader for legal cannabis.

    Every medical cannabis cardholder who visits our South Dakota dispensaries can always expect exceptional strain genetics, products and education surrounding medicinal cannabis use.

    Additionally, we are devoted to continuing our history of civic engagement, corporate responsibility and positively impacting the communities where we serve.

  • South Dakota cannabis patient advocates to legalize medical marijuana.

    A Legacy of Advocacy

    Since 2009, the founders of the Genesis Farms have fought for the rights and legal protections South Dakota medical cannabis patients deserve.

    By forming the South Dakota Coalition for Compassion, partnering with advocates and engaging various patient communities across the state, the founders began their mission to educate the unmistakable benefits medical cannabis can provide as a relief alternative.

    Keep reading to see how Genesis Farms has contributed to and impacted the South Dakota legal cannabis landscape.

Committed to Staying True to Our Roots

Genesis Farms’ founders have been fighting to reform South Dakota’s cannabis laws since 2009.

When Justin and Christine Johnson, and Emmett Reistroffer formed the South Dakota Coalition for Compassion. Justin, a cancer survivor, Christine, an oncology nurse, and Emmett, whose family member benefited from medical cannabis during cancer treatment, met with east and west river advocates and reached out to other patient communities.

Justin, Christine, and Emmett participated in the annual MS Walk after meeting Patrick Lynch, the former Chairman of the MS Society’s South Dakota Chapter, and immediately started collaborating with Pat to start a non-profit organization.

With the South Dakota Coalition for Compassion being established, Justin, Christine and Emmett set out with the mission to bring needed relief to their fellow sick and dying South Dakotans in need of the benefits that medical cannabis provides.

*Photo: Genesis Farms’ honorary patient advisor, Patrick Lynch, speaks at a medical cannabis rally at Sherman Park in Sioux Falls, with assistance from retired police officer, Anthony Ryan.

 

Keeping Patients First

In early 2010, Pat Lynch and other MS patients joined the Coalition for Compassion to bring their message to the South Dakota State Capitol, where they unfortunately faced resistance. Without giving up, the Coalition launched a ballot initiative campaign to legalize medical cannabis in South Dakota.

Although the ballot initiative failed to pass in 2010, they never gave up, continued to support forthcoming ballot initiatives, and still work on a daily basis to expand access to legal cannabis in South Dakota.

Shortly after voters passed Initiated Measure 26 and Amendment A in the 2020 election, Justin and Emmett teamed up to lobby state lawmakers and educate state rule-makers to ensure the new laws go into effect in a timely and appropriate manner. Unfortunately, cannabis advocates faced a significant set back when Amendment A was overturned by the courts because of a technicality.

However, Genesis Farms and our allies remain steadfast to stand up a successful medical cannabis program, while still fighting to pass broader cannabis legalization.

 
 

The Journey is Far From Over

Our founders have been involved in changing South Dakota’s cannabis laws, every step of the way, as founding board members of the Cannabis Industry Association of South Dakota, and through ongoing contributions to South Dakotan’s For Better Marijuana Laws. Over the last few state legalization campaigns, Genesis Farms sponsored multiple petition drive-through events at our dispensary locations in Aberdeen and Rapid City, and at our corporate office in Sioux Falls. We stand firmly by the patient community and being proud supporters of the cannabis movement!