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| Cloud Shadowshot, dr Jay Jamaloodeen and Krithi Thaver inspect elephant grass that will be replaced by hemp in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. |
I spoke to fellow activists in these budding industries to hear where SA’s canna-business is at and where it can go.
Heinrich Gerwel at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University, last year
published a paper detailing how cannabis can reduce poverty and open up the international market, as the company Medi Kingdom is proving in Lesotho.
published a paper detailing how cannabis can reduce poverty and open up the international market, as the company Medi Kingdom is proving in Lesotho.
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| Medicinal grade cannabis planted in Lesotho at one of Medi Kingdom's three green houses/ |
Proving his case, Lesotho’s Prime Minister Dr Thom Thabane on Monday opened Medi Kingdom’s third site and head office. Medi Kingdom began cultivating medical cannabis in the Qacha’s Nek district in 2016 and is now exporting bio-material and extract to Canada and Australia, the first company to so in Africa.
In his 2017 paper, Gerwel warned it remains to be seen whether “elite capture” can be mitigated to make cannabis cultivation an inclusive, pro-poor industry in South Africa.
Sharecropper clubs
In KZN, an increasingly popular way to keep corporates from capturing cannabis is a “sharecropper club”. The club members pay a person to grow plants on a private plot. Most of these clubs operate on a hand-shake, with growers using social media to show the owners how their plants — which often have names — are flourishing.
One such grower, sangoma Lucky Mhlongo, says sharecropper clubs enable traditional healers like himself to operate within current legal confines in SA, supplying medicinal cannabis to “ever growing demand” on a private basis.
“We don’t deal with passing trade,” said Mhlongo.
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| Krithi Thaver, silhouetted at the first cannabis dispensary in South Africa. |
One person who does supply medicinal cannabis to the public is Krithi Thaver, whose Holistic Releaf dispensary in Durban north was the first in South Africa to openly sell cannabis — though only as extracts infused in Ayurvedic oils.
Holistic Releaf recently opened its first franchise on the north coast and is now calling on parties interested in opening more franchises across South Africa. Thaver returned from the Cannabis Expo in Pretoria with two permits from the departments of agriculture and health, to import hemp seeds and cultivate 5 000 hectares.
‘Never enough hemp’
Thaver said experiments by Hemporium’s Tony Budden showed hemp has the same planting protocols as maize, but this late in the year, only 1 000 ha will be planted under irrigation near Newcastle. The aim is to harvest both the seed for industrial use and the 4-metre high plant for biofuel, which will be exported to the U.S.
Hemp advocate, Arné Verhoef, said 1 000 ha will be SA’s largest hemp farm and among the biggest in the world.
Verhoef will be addressing the Asian Hemp Summit in Nepal in February on opportunities in Africa. Verhoef told The Witness his message is cannabis grown for materials and food, not “highs”, is the flagship crop of Africa’s green future.
Verhoef however warned local farmers have a lot of catching up to do.
China currently produces 20% of the world’s hemp, with plans to grow over one million hectares. The European Union is also helping farmers to add to the 33 000 ha under hemp in various countries, while Canada and the U.S., which last week classified hemp as a food, not a drug, will soon catch up with Europe.
Farm This City’s Rehann Calitz, however said farmers need never fear an over-supply of hemp. “Apart from the seeds being a superfood, hempcrete is the next green building material, because it absorbs up to 165kg of carbon dioxide per m³. We have to eat and build with hemp to save the climate,” said Calitz.
• To contact people interviewed, please liaise with alwyn.viljoen@gmail.com
