[imagesource: Emma Vickers]

At some point, when you graduated from smoking seed-laden tarries and jut, you may have puffed on Swazi Gold.

Weed from Lesotho, though, seems less prominent, although the country’s commercial cannabis farms are putting the plant on the map.

In 2017, the country became the first in Africa to grant licences for the production of medicinal cannabis, with Quartz reporting that international investment soon followed.

Not on a small scale, either, because some of the world’s largest cannabis companies quickly became involved, pointing to the country’s altitude and abundant water supply as the ideal environment.

In March 2018, a Canadian company, Supreme Cannabis, made a C$10 million ($7.5 million) investment in the Marakabei farm [below], Medigrow. Hot on its heels, the Canadian giant Canopy Growth paid more than $21 million to acquire a local Lesotho company, Daddy Cann, in May 2018. In the same month, the Canadian company Aphria formed a joint venture with Verve Dynamics, which has a growing site in Lesotho, a deal worth $3 million…

 “Cannabis is going to set free this country,” says Dr. Emmanuel Letete, an economist in Lesotho’s Ministry of Development Planning. “Although people don’t see it yet.” Where the kingdom’s mountainous geography once meant that it missed out on big agribusiness opportunities, this time its altitude could be the key to its fortune.

With an estimated 80% of the country relying on subsistence farming to survive, the burgeoning industry is a massive boost. Medigrow’s Marakabei farm already employs 350 people, and by 2021 the company hopes to employ the entire village.

Andre Bothma, the CEO of Medigrow, also ensures the company runs programmes aimed at improving literacy in the area, and is looking at ways to expand its impact beyond just those who can work in the cannabis industry.

The conundrum, though, is an all too familiar one:

At the national level, the potential for mismanagement or corruption is high. Already in Lesotho, allegations abound of licenses that were handed out on the basis of connections rather than competence. Within two years of the first licenses being granted, the process has been so chaotic that the government itself is unsure of how many licenses exist, reducing their value and dissuading investment…

Emma Vickers

For a time licenses were free, obtained without fee, and were given out with little oversight, allegedly to those who could muster the funds to pay off an official, says [then-Minister of Health, Molotsi] Monyamane. At the present time health minister Nkaku Kabi himself isn’t clear on how many licenses have been allocated, estimating it is between thirty and forty…

The license fee was raised in May 2018 to where it stands now, and all current license holders have been asked to pay the fee, even those who paid nothing in the first place. This leaves Kabi with a problem: Should he withdraw licenses from those who can’t pay, most of whom are locals?

The fee charged for a licence currently sits at around 500 000 maloti (just over R500 000), which is well beyond the means of many local operations.

Because of this, there are fears that companies from the likes of Canada, the US, and Britain will continue to reap the benefits of this growing industry, with locals working in the lower rungs of companies owned and run from overseas.

It’s a conundrum that is, of course, not limited to either Lesotho or the cannabis industry, and some important decisions need to be made.

You can read the full Quartz article here.

[source:quartz]