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Malawi farmers say the license fees to grow cannabis amounting to $10,000, is prohibitively high.
This is despite Malawi’s readiness to become the latest in Africa to produce cannabis for medicinal and industrial use according to Malawi’s new Cannabis Regulatory Authority.
The enactment of a law allowing cultivation of cannabis sounded like good news to Yohane Banda, a farmer in Kasungu district in central Malawi.
Mr Banda believed switching to cannabis would almost triple his earnings from the tobacco he has been growing for the past 15 years.
But now, the license fees required to grow the crop have faded his hopes.
“It’s discouraging because in cannabis growing to get the license it’s expensive. They are saying it’s MK 250,000 ($330) per hectare,” said Banda.
“While growing tobacco, you pay according to the quarter that you have been provided with by the Tobacco Control Commission. For example, the starting quarter is 200 kilograms and you pay MK 21,000 ($28).”
The license fees to grow cannabis is up to $10,000 to cultivate and sell medicinal hemp, and $2,000 for the right to grow and sell industrial hemp.
Jacob Nyirongo, the chief executive officer for the Farmers Union of Malawi said the regulatory authorities should have first looked at the market price of the crop before setting the license fees.
“The question is; if you buy a license at $10,000, what kind of market price for cannabis to warrant a farmer to make a profit? If you look at licensing rates for those who trade in products that are manufactured from industrial hemp, you will find that their rates are very low, giving an impression that the law might promote trading other than production,” said Nyirongo.
However, the Cannabis Regulatory Authority defending the fees said the expectation is that farmers will operate in cooperatives, not individually.
Registering a cooperative in Malawi according to Farmer Banda, is not an easy task.
“It cannot be possible by growing this crop by using cooperatives. You know here in Malawi even to form a cooperative takes a long time, you will face a lot of challenges; paperwork, how cooperatives work; to go to government offices and get a license for a cooperative is a challenge,” said Mr Banda.
Malawi has long depended on tobacco, which accounts for about 13 per cent of its gross domestic product and 60 per cent of its foreign exchange earnings.
However, tobacco prices per kilogramme have fallen, largely over the years due to anti-tobacco campaigns and fewer people smoking. As a result of this, growing cannabis is seen as an alternative way of helping the country diversify its agriculture-based economy.
Malawi is now one of five southern African countries alongside Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho and South Africa that have licensed cannabis for production.
The board chairperson for the Cannabis Regulatory Authority, Boniface Kadzamira said the board has so far received more than 100 applications for licensing which were under review.
“The challenge now is we don’t have seed in the country that people can use. We will rely on the seed that is going to be imported from outside the country,” said Kadzamira.
“And those who did trials, one of them has been given permission to import the seeds and we are hoping the seed will be in the country maybe by the end of December. Definitely there will be late growing by those who are ready to start.”
Meanwhile, the government has said in the meantime, it will consider reviewing the cannabis license fees, in response to concerns from farmers and other stakeholders.
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