“I’ve been looking at this as an option for stable year-round income and potentially give me the chance to stay in Truro,” Cook said. “As a 28-year-old, it has been difficult. I’ve had to move several times. I’m looking for stability and this could give me that.”

“Really, this is about jobs,” said Tim McCarthy, who works with DeWitt at the Outer Cape Cannabis Commission. “Local living-wage jobs. That’s the key.”

DeWitt said he foresees, in the third or fourth year of operation, 12 year-round jobs at $20 an hour at his farm alone.

Ennie McDonald of Fleet Town Organics in Wellfleet said this would help her make a living.

“I’m not hiring any employees, I just want to be able to work,” she said, bouncing her son, Wiley Mountain, on her lap. “I can’t afford child care, but he can be hanging outside with me in the shade while I get stuff done. I’m not changing my farm. I’ll continue to grow flowers, vegetables and other herbs. Sometimes I don’t make my money back or I just break even. This could help.”

DeWitt said that Cannabis Control Commission regulations limit the land area that the cooperative could use to 100,000 square feet. “We are significantly less than that right now,” he said. “Probably around 30,000 square feet.”

He said the income from cannabis would help maintain Truro’s rural character. “There’s a lot of fear out there that there’s going to be hundreds of greenhouses everywhere, but that’s not the case,” he said.