Call for growers to join cannabis council

Krithi Thaver, founder of Canna Culture in South Africa.

 A “fledgling association” for South Africa’s many cannabis growers had its first meeting at Cato Ridge last night to advise emerging farmers from six rural areas how to grow cannabis for hospitals and other sectors.

The farmers hailed from Melmoth, KwaDakuza, Mandini, Winterton, Underberg and the South Coast.

They were addressed by founder of Durban-based Canna Culture, Krithi Thaver.

Thaver told the farmers in a briefing session in Camperdown about the still onerous process of getting a licence to grow cannabis, which hybrids were in demand for medicinal use, and the future of the cannabis market.

The meeting followed the format set last week in Soweto, when House of Hemp CEO, Dr Thandeka Kunene, the only
person permitted to grow cannabis for research in SA to date, and her brother Daluxolo addressed emerging farmers in Gauteng on the demand for cannabis and hemp products.

Dr Thandeka Kunene has big plans for South Africa's
rural cannabis farmers.

Founder of Hemporium, Tony Budden told The Witness the Cannabis Developing Council of South Africa (CDCSA) is a fledgling association, formed in response to various government officials’ request for a cannabis industry body that could speak on behalf of its members.

Budden said to council members will help shape future regulations that will set standards and ensure fair play in SA’s future cannabis market. He warned the processes to change the laws that still prohibit possession and dealing in any part of the cannabis plant will take two to four years.

Meanwhile, the next step for the fledgling council is to get current players involved, write a constitution, and establish sub-councils that could speed up the progress that has been made in the last two years towards decriminalising and regulating cannabis.

Hemporium founder Tony Budden in front of
a house built with hemp bricks in South Africa. 

These sub-councils will have to deal with nine government departments, namely agriculture, forestry, economic development, environmental affairs, justice, rural development and land reform, science and technology, small business development, trade and industry, and health.

Cannabis is often touted to have over 50 000 uses, all of which threaten established petrochemical, forestry and pharmaceutical interests. The CDCSA website currently proposes 30 licences in four categories, starting with free licences for rural farmers to grow seed for its high nutrition up to bio-fuel refineries to turn hemp into methanol to power vehicles.

Thaver told The Witness the current black market for medicinal cannabis in SA was totally unregulated but the buyer deserved to know exactly what they were buying, whether from a sangoma or from one of several doctors now advising their patients to use cannabis.

Thaver stressed the CDCSA’s move to develop a booming cannabis-farming sector was not connected to the recreational use of cannabis, which he predicts will continue unabated among southern Africans.

Thaver invited any interested parties to join the CDSA to help shape the regulations that will govern the quality of their harvests and profitability of their businesses. (Published in The Witness)

Contact Krithi Thaver on 062 292 1389.

Budding plans for a cannabis council