Zimpapers Logo

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently reiterated plans to accelerate the commercialisation of hemp as well as cannabis plants. His speech setting out government’s priorities for 2023 was a reminder of a pledge in 2022 – also in his state of the nation address – that the government would mobilise investment in the hemp and cannabis sectors.

In his speech, the president indicated that government is in the process of addressing the conditions for the growth of the cannabis sector, particularly for rural farmers.

The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development and the Department of Health are working closely to address the existing conditions for growing hemp and cannabis to enable outdoor cultivation and harvesting by rural farmers.

Currently farmers who have licences grow their hemp and cannabis indoors under controlled conditions. The commercialisation will allow them to farm outdoors on a larger scale.

This is very exciting. The industry has the potential to create jobs, alleviate poverty and help reduce the extreme inequality in South Africa.

One estimate is that the sector has the potential to create more than 130 000 new jobs.

Local and international markets

The opportunity to commercialise the hemp and cannabis industry is that it is a new, fast-growing, multi-billion-dollar sector with local and international markets. The potential legal pharmaceutical market for hemp and cannabis in South Africa alone has been estimated at over R100 billion a year. -Moneyweb

But there are challenges.First, that the government fails to implement changes needed to ensure the sector grows in a way that benefits township and rural entrepreneurial farmers.

Adding a paragraph dedicated to the cannabis and hemp sector to the annual state of the nation address each year is one thing. But seeing action being taken and plans implemented is another.

The second is that, from mid-2022, small-scale farmers farming cannabis were promised they would be issued with licences to farm legally. However, some farmers in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape are still waiting.

But there is a way forward. Based on my experience as a member of the Cannabis Organisation University of Pretoria and a member of one of the working groups set up to give inputs for a government masterplan first drawn up in 2021, I make four recommendations to fast-track the process.

These include reviewing and revising the existing masterplan, getting defunct working groups up and running again, ensuring the plan is in place before investments begin, and setting up a monitoring and evaluation capability.

Thank you!Received, thank you.Very interesting!