Through every step of post-harvest, Maku Eneh brings his love for plants, his colleagues, and the wider community into every stage of ANTG’s journey. Post Harvest is where cultivation hands over to manufacturing – the stage that focuses on drying, trimming, curing, and preparing medicines to meet Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards.
How do you explain what you do?
I put it in very simple terms. I tell them we grow medicinal cannabis – the natural growth of cannabis for medical purposes, which also involves cannabinoids. There are several stages. Plants ready for harvest are prepared and placed into the drying room and hung and allowed to dry. The debudding is the next phase… we take the bulk flowers from the stem, and place it into the machine. After that, when the batch is done, we go into the trimming. We don’t just have the bulk flowers – we try and trim excess leaves from these before we push into the next stage, packing and when that’s done it’s ready for shipment. The whole process, the whole debudding and harvesting, is quite fun. Very interesting to see.
What makes it fun?
Having the mindset that I contributed to the medical wellbeing of people. I played a role in that. Seeing the whole plants coming from the cultivation stage.
How do you get a job like this?
You need some knowledge about agriculture and post-harvest – that’s one thing I would tell people. You need to know about handling plants! Back home I had ag experience, so I had that skill and post-harvest exposure.
What’s the best thing about the gig?
My colleagues, the staff. One thing I am excited about every day is getting to work and getting to see my colleagues. They make you feel at home. Besides that, the whole process, going from cloning to cultivation, and right through, seeing the R&D and product formats, it’s such a diverse and interesting environment. There is always something new happening. I drive 25–30 minutes to work every day and I get excited for a new day, working with different sets of teams and being able to learn something new.
And the biggest challenge?
Personally, when I lost my dad at the age of 18. I was at home. All my siblings were away. I had to make decisions at that age – to be a leader in my family. With time, I found out that I was doing well. And in the workplace, I would say there was a point where I was asked to look after some team members and oversee a batch process as some of the leads were busy. I put my head down and tried to do it as best as I could and it happened. Teamwork — let’s do it!
Where’s your favourite place in Armidale to hang out?
I love driving to Dumaresq Dam, it’s about 20 minutes away, or even going a bit further afield to watch a waterfall. I love watching the way it flows and appreciating nature. The colour of the leaves and autumn here is beautiful. I sometimes hang out with my colleagues, which I really enjoy, like on Fridays. I love all of them. We crack jokes and work out riddles!
Do you have a favourite quote to live by?
The best view comes after the hardest climb. It’s not easy to climb huge mountains, but don’t give up because the best is yet to come.
