Last week during his State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa spoke about the opportunities linked to the liberalisation of the cannabis industry. He made a direct reference to the Mpondoland region and the possibilities that cannabis could unlock for rural regions in South Africa. Listening to him, my head exploded with red-alert warnings. I wanted to run, headlong, with all due dispatch.  

In addition to the opportunities mentioned by the president, Premier David Makhura also highlighted the fact that the cannabis industry has seen huge growth over the last 12 months and that the provincial government has identified unique economic opportunities to help boost this industry.    

But cannabis may soon become a resource curse that will hit rural communities the hardest. Before we look at why this may be so, let us briefly revisit what happened in the Mpondoland region, to real people, not so long ago, when government identified a similar “opportunity”.

Xolobeni is a beautiful and desolate place on the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The inhabitants, a community of several hundred people, are known as isiMpondo or imizi,  and they have lived on and worked this land for generations, preserving their rich traditions and customs. To the imizi, their connectedness to the land they live on goes far beyond the western concept of title deeds. Their ancestors are buried here, and apart from legally protected customary land rights, the land is an extension of their dignity, their story, and the interdependent nature of their relationship with Africa, and the soil. 

Because the sands of the Xolobeni coastline are rich in titanium, an Australian mining firm applied to the government for a mining license to strip-mine the beaches. The potential presence of the mine in Xolobeni is a highly contested topic. The community is divided with some in support of the mine for the work opportunities it may bring, and others against the mine and in favour of preserving their way of life and attracting economic opportunities to the area through tourism. The government sees opportunities for raising revenue and taxes from the mining venture whilst the mining license applicants have a profit motive. 

In time, and through the actions of the stakeholders as outlined above, the titanium in these sands became a resource curse that could destroy the social fabric of the imizi. 

Since the start of the conflict long-standing friends have become bitter enemies as the different stakeholders fought for a piece of the pie. The authorities have used their coercive powers to intimidate and threaten opponents of the mine while the mining company has bribed those in favour of the mine with cars and cash.  

Each of the stakeholders in the dispute has their own perspective and motive which has shaped the power struggle and how it played out. 

The Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) was founded in 2007 to oppose the awarding of mining rights in the area and attempts by the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) to build freeway infrastructure on the coastline. As the most prominent opposition voice in this case study, the ACC have always fought for customary land rights, and the preservation of their land, tribal customs and rituals, which represents ancient eco-indigeneity. The committee members view freedom as a key ingredient of development. Freedom to preserve their way of life, to choose how they wish to engage with the outside world, and above all freedom inherent in security of tenure. They see economic opportunities in tourism and oppose the physical disruption and environmental degradation that is associated with mining. 

Directly opposed to the ACC are those community members that are in favour of the mining project. Their main motivation is the current lack of infrastructure such as schools, electricity, clinics and roads as well as the potential job opportunities for locals to work at the mine. It is common cause that these community interest groups have had violent altercations over the mine and in 2016, a prominent ACC activist was murdered allegedly by persons posing as police officers. 

Business interests are represented by the Australian mining firm Transworld Mineral and Resources (TEM), and local contractor Xolco. It is alleged by the ACC that the local chief is a co-founder of Xolco, a claim that he refutes. This camp downplays the environmental and health hazards associated with mining as well as the mechanised nature of open cast technology, which requires much less manpower than traditional mining methods. TEM and Xolco aim to monetise the natural resources of Xolobeni for profit. 

To all these stakeholders the stakes are so high as to be potentially fatal should one fail, and worth all the associated violence, all the government strong-arm tactics, and worth the tenacity and resolve of those opposing the mine.  

Against this background, I am very concerned about the implications for the commercial cannabis opportunities that are being touted.

Responding to Sona, agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo identified the opportunities for cannabis. He says: “South Africa’s competitive advantage could be built on the back of a transparent and predictable regulatory framework; an open investment regime; strong research and development support; knowledge networks that bring together university researchers, centres of excellence and other industry players; product quality and standards authority; and a low cost licensing regime”.

Unfortunately, the reality in South Africa is closer to the Xolobeni experience than we realise. It is already very expensive to obtain any kind of license for commercial cannabis activities. During a cannabis information session hosted by the Gauteng Department of Agriculture in 2021, over 400 attendees lamented the existing regulatory barriers that would certainly keep rural communities firmly outside the commercial value chain. 

The investment regime is already elitist and exclusionary, and trying to deal with authorities such as the SA Health Products Regulatory Agency (Sahpra) is an exquisite form of bureaucratic harassment. 

But perhaps the greatest opportunity we are missing is in the research and development support space as it connects to knowledge networks. 

The exercise of the UN-endorsed global farmers privilege, and the body of indigenous knowledge gathered by African women over centuries is being eroded and may soon be lost in totality due to the emphasis on development that is measured by economic growth and capital expansion. The cannabis industry is no exception. 

Author Fiona Moola asks profound questions in her book, Natures of Africa: “Are we genetically programmed for the pastoral? Is there an African pastoral mythology?”  The connectedness of the Amapondo to their ancestral land, and the vast wealth of indigenous knowledge employed in their subsistence does suggest a pastoral mythology that might be evolved for the betterment of mankind, but Big Pharma and the government is not interested. 

Eco-indigeneity constitutes a system of permaculture that ensures sustainability, biodiversity, and a permanent relationship between man, animals, and the Earth. Mervyn Claxton argues that eco-indigenous knowledge is the most important weapon in the fight against climate change, and that it is being ignored as a result of the colonial mindset that indigenous knowledge and practices are inferior and not suitable for food production at scale. 

He goes further to suggest that the solutions to current climate change crises can be found in the reservoir of indigenous knowledge and ancient practice and colonisers’ inability to appreciate the depth and scope of what they found in Africa is an oversight that the Global North is now paying for in environmental catastrophe.

Because of the great significance of indigenous knowledge, and the marginalisation of African eco-indigeneity in the global political economy, a few pivots must accompany the bold assertions for cannabis that excited us during the Sona. 

Firstly, it should be just as affordable for a single rural farmer to obtain regulatory compliance as for Clicks and Dischem. The ICT revolution brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic leaves government entities such as Sahpra with no excuses. They simply must design a user experience that enables even the most marginalised grower to become compliant. 

Secondly, it became abundantly clear to me whilst listening during a cannabis seminar last year that the industry itself is not only able to self-regulate responsibly, but they are also ready to do it. There is actually very little need for policymakers to add subordinate legislation to the books. The cannabis industry can regulate itself far better than central government can and its growers, agro-processors and users must learn to collaborate better across the cultural divide. 

This brings me to my next wish. The knowledge value chain that Sihlobo refers to must also include those African women in our rural areas who have built up extensive indigenous knowledge. Their wisdom is indispensable to future research efforts for cannabis. 

But most profoundly, the cannabis industry must take cognisance of the changes in consumer behaviour as a result of accelerated disruption during and after the pandemic. This is the subject of another discussion. It’s enough to say that, personally, I’d want to buy my CBD oil from an artisanal grower who understands the miracle they created, who respects and nurtures the soil that enabled it and who is authentic in their relationship with me, the customer.  

As shown by attendees at the cannabis conference, ‘Cannabis Inc’ in South Africa is capable and willing to define its own development trajectory, effectively leapfrogging three centuries of dirty industrialisation to a future where, along the lines described by Amartya Sen, in Development as Freedom, development is seen as the progressive extension of personal and economic freedoms over and above the narrow focus on regulations, taxable income, monetised profit and related measurements.  DM