Cannabis in Africa – Mozambique

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CANNABIS CULTURE – Informal cannabis replaces wild fruits as cash cow.

In Tete, a rural central Mozambique district, where poverty is rife, picking wild baobab fruit has been the anchor economy for thousands of residents. However, the rising popularity of cannabis in neighboring countries is motivating residents to dump low-paying fruit for lucrative cannabis cultivation.

Change of Fortunes

“For years, gathering baobab fruit for sale to powder makers at $2/kg was all we used to do here in Tete. Suddenly, there’s a demand for raw cannabis by ‘black market’ buyers coming from neighbor countries Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa,” says Midu, 46, a widowed mother of four in Shangara, a deprived district of Tete which sits at migrant crossroads going north up to Malawi, west to Zimbabwe and Zambia and south to South Africa. “It’s worth it, raw harvested cannabis goes for up to $8/kg.”

To speak freely with Cannabis Culture, Midu hides her surname.

Cannabis cultivation and possession in Mozambique is strictly prohibited. On paper, offenders face harsh jail sentences. This makes Mozambique an outlier among neighbor countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, where commercial cultivation of cannabis for medicinal purposes is allowed and business is flourishing. However, it doesn’t mean that among low-income rural Mozambique citisens cannabis cultivation is not rife. “We hide the cannabis in the middle of our corn crops in forest fields that we clear. There are very few police officers on the ground in rural districts to bother us. The most troublesome police officers understand this is a way for us to earn income,” Midu tells Cannabis Culture.

Foreign Buyers

Foreign, unlicensed buyers from neighbor countries come to Tete to buy raw cannabis which they take across the borders without borders for resale, says Bikwa Molo, a rural chief in Tete who insists that though he doesn’t condone unlicensed cannabis cultivation, he has heard stories. “I am told the trade happens at night. A kilogram of raw cannabis fetches up to $7 dollars and when shipped to neighbor countries, the same kilogram exchanges hands for $12,”

Molo says. “It’s extreme poverty – you can’t really stop people from cultivating and cashing on raw cannabis when they have little else – like here in Mozambique.”

That ‘black market’ cultivation and selling of cannabis in Tete, Mozambique, is making rural residents to dump baobab fruit collection, has traders worried. “Business is low, lowest in years,” says Jame Chikisa, a baobab fruit trader who for ten years he says he has bought the fruit and crushed it before exporting to baobab powder buying companies up north in the Republic of Tanzania. “We used to buy 500kg baobab fruit in three months from rural collectors here in Tete until three years ago when cannabis got rapidly legalized in neighboring countries. Now we hardly do 100 kg; baobab collectors have switched onto more lucrative cannabis cultivation. I don’t blame them.”

No Surprises

For Pious Sinyama, an independent economist with the Tete Rural Livelihoods Mapping Alliance, a non-profit in the district, that baobab collectors are switching to informal cannabis cultivation is hardly a surprise. “Informal economies always mature or switch into other income streams in places where the state can’t grow formal employment. Imagine what these informal cannabis cultivators would achieve if their business was legalized and properly taxed and global cannabis buyers were brought on the ground to partner with farmers in contract cultivation.”

For Midu, it’s worth taking the risk of growing cannabis illegally, she says because the rewards are life changing. “In just one year of harvesting raw cannabis, I have been able to erect a water borehole at my home, buy two solar panels, send back all my children to school and buy five eight for milk. With baobab fruit, I failed to do that in five years of collecting the fruit.”

Stern Warning

The Mozambique police in Tete District says they are aware of cultivation of cannabis in rural hinterlands. “We continue to receive such reports and warn all culprits that they should not cry foul when the long arm of the law catches up with them.”

This doesn’t deter Midu. “It’s hot air,” she says of the police’s threats to shut down forest fields where cannabis is grown. “They don’t even have enough cars to patrol villages.” There is a growing lobby among economists, civil society, and grassroots cultivators like Midu for Mozambique to align herself with neighbor countries and legalize cannabis. For now, it is a long shot as Mozambique’s parliament hasn’t even made moves to debate the issue or introduce it.

Healthly Days

Disclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Healthly Days.
Publisher: Nyasha Bhobo - Special to Cannabis Culture

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