Who Grows Medical Cannabis in Israel? The Licensed Cultivators (2026)

Israel is widely described as a cannabis powerhouse, so the size of its actual farming sector tends to surprise people: the country's medical cannabis is grown by a group of licensed cultivators small enough to fit in a single room, and that group has been getting smaller. This guide sets out who grows cannabis in Israel, how a farm becomes licensed, and why the domestic grower base is under acute commercial pressure in 2026.

This guide is informational and is not medical or investment advice. Company statuses change; verify against filings before relying on them.

How a farm becomes a licensed grower

Cultivation in Israel is not an agricultural licence so much as a pharmaceutical one. Growers operate under the Health Ministry's medical cannabis unit (the Yakar / IMCA framework), and a farm must first obtain a grower registration number — issued after police clearance — before it can be assessed against IMC-GAP, the Israeli Medical Cannabis Good Agricultural Practices standard for propagation and cultivation. Processing, extraction and packaging fall under the separate IMC-GMP standard. The standards were introduced in 2018 and are audited by approved certification bodies rather than self-declared.

The practical effect is a high floor. A grower needs security infrastructure, batch traceability, contamination controls and audited documentation before a single gram reaches a pharmacy. We cover the standards themselves in detail in Israel's medical cannabis quality standards (IMC-GAP and IMC-GMP).

So how many growers are there?

There is no tidy public register, but the best current public number comes from an unexpected place: Israel's anti-dumping file against Canadian cannabis imports. In the decision opening its August 2026 investigation, Israel's Trade Levies and Import Administration recorded that the complainants had attached an appendix listing approximately 15 domestic growers supporting the complaint, and that this list constituted "about 80% of all growers operating in the local market" and almost all growers not themselves involved in importing (StratCann, 4 August 2026).

Taken at face value, that implies a total domestic grower population somewhere under twenty — for a country with roughly 143,900 licence and prescription holders. It is a concentrated sector, and the regulator's own document notes that "following the publication of the findings in the first investigation, many growers in Israel ceased their operations."

Who they are

The same investigation file is also the most current public list of active Israeli producers and importers. Names appearing in it include Canndoc (the production arm of InterCure), Seach Medical, BOL Pharma, Together Pharma, Bazelet Pharma, Panaxia, Cann Better, IMC, CannAssure, Cantek Global, Therapin, Plantech Medical and Tikun Olam (StratCann). The June 2026 reopening of the case followed fresh complaints from two further Israeli companies, Evergreen Solomon Pharma and Trichome.

Two of the largest have full profiles on this site: InterCure / Canndoc, Israel's largest licensed producer and the clearest example of a vertically integrated seed-to-pharmacy model, and IM Cannabis, which pairs domestic supply with pharmacy distribution. Our company directory tracks listings, tickers and status across the wider sector.

The detail that explains the politics: growers who also import

The single most useful thing in that filing is the distinction the complainants drew — that their ~15 supporters represent almost all growers who are not involved in importing. Many Israeli licence-holders are both. A company can cultivate domestically and simultaneously import Canadian flower to fill out its catalogue, which is commercially rational and politically awkward: it means the "Israeli industry" is not a single bloc with a single interest. That split is why the country's cannabis trade fights are so bitter, and why they keep failing to resolve.

Why the grower base is shrinking

The pressure is a price gap. In its August 2026 decision, Israel's Commissioner for Trade Levies, Danny Tal, calculated an average Canadian export price to Israel of about ₪4.43 per gram, against an average domestic Canadian price of about ₪10 per gram — a prima facie dumping margin of roughly 125% (StratCann). Over the injury period from July 2023 to June 2026, Canada exported cannabis to Israel worth CAD$107.95 million, against CAD$37.05 million from all other countries combined.

Canadian producers dispute the benchmark. Wholesale dried flower in Canada commonly trades between roughly CAD$1.22 and CAD$1.97 per gram, while the broader Canada Cannabis Spot Index sits nearer CAD$3.93–4.01 depending on which supply-chain tier is measured — so the "normal value" the Israeli calculation rests on is exactly what is contested. One listed exporter, Rubicon Organics, told StratCann it has not sold any product destined for Israel at all.

This is the second attempt at the same remedy. An investigation opened in November 2024 recommended tariffs as high as 165%; the finance minister rejected the levies in April 2025 and the matter lapsed. The current case was reopened in June 2026, briefly closed on 29 July 2026 over a notification error, and formally restarted on 5 August 2026, with Canadian exporters required to return questionnaires by 7 September 2026. The dumping period under review runs July 2025 to June 2026; the injury period runs July 2023 to June 2026.

What it means for patients

Nothing about this is abstract for the roughly 143,900 Israelis holding a licence or prescription. Domestic growers argue that cheap imports are destroying the local supply base; importers, the Health Ministry and the Competition Authority argued during the 2025 round that tariffs would raise prices and push patients toward the illicit market. Both can be true at once. For how those prices actually land at the pharmacy counter, see what medical cannabis costs in Israel, and for the supply picture in full, Israel's cannabis imports and supply.

The takeaway

Israel's cultivator sector is small, highly regulated, internally divided between growers and grower-importers, and currently contracting. The regulatory floor set by IMC-GAP and IMC-GMP produces genuinely high-quality product but at a cost base that imported flower has repeatedly undercut — and the resolution of that, one way or the other, will decide how many Israeli farms are still growing in 2027. For the sector overview see our Companies hub; for sizing and trade data, the Market hub.