CANNABIS CULTURE – The two nations are Africa’s cannabis pacesetters and both countries are increasingly brawling over access to water to nourish their cannabis crops. Is the conflict destined to play out continent wide?
Even before the advent of cannabis cash crop, both South Africa and Lesotho have historically been involved in water security tensions. In a 1998 war between them, gun battles centered around the control of a strategic fresh water reserve. By geography, the tiny Kingdom of Lesotho, home to around 2 million residents, due to its high elevation, provides much of the freshwater South Africa’s commercial heartlands needs under a $15mn per year agreement. Recently Lesotho, which is expanding farmland to cultivate and export cannabis for medicinal purposes, is clamoring to keep more of her water for herself because she is experiencing climate-change-induced droughts, her water reserves are dwindling and her farming needs are growing.
Cannabis farmers on both sides of the borders tell Cannabis Culture that they are worried because – water which they desperately need to secure the crop – will increasingly get weaponized as climate droughts make it a dwindling resource.
“A big volume of our water is pumped to South Africa, and we have drought here in Lesotho, what shall we irrigate our small but cannabis farms with in ten years to come?” says Fraser Molokote, leader of the Thaba Chu Cannabis Growers association, an informal lobby of a dozen Black cannabis farmers growing small plots of cannabis in Katse Village in the Lesotho Highlands.
Most of the Katse Dam’s waters gets sent over across the border to South Africa.
Ravishing drought has hit the water-rich Lesotho Highlands district in the last decade. The United Nations Development Programme warns that ‘Drought, rising temperatures, and extreme weather pose risks to Lesotho’.
“There is so much competition for water supplies between the farmers of all kinds here in the Lesotho Highlands, including us cannabis farmers, households, and our neighbor South Africa to which most of our water is pumped. We can’t keep supplying South Africa with our water or our cannabis farms won’t get prioritized future severe droughts”.
Albert Sagkala, the planning secretary for water and resources management in Lesotho’ water ministry says, the local cannabis farmers are understandable but in the event of severe droughts in future, all domestic Lesotho farmers will be prioritized in water allocations.
Swaziland, South Africa, cannabis further afield, but still within South Africa’s borderlands, is the Kingdom of Swaziland, famous for its ‘Swazi gold’ cannabis strain. Swaziland is participating in delicate negotiations to manage dwindling but shared water reserves with South Africa. Cannabis players say that unless new gigantic dams are built or renovated – the future of cannabis farmers on both sides of the borders could be trapped in South Africa- Swaziland growing water woes that are tightly linked. The north-eastern part of South Africa, which shares a border with the Kingdom of Swaziland, is very arid and dry and increasingly water-deficient due to climate change.
“The famous Swazi gold cannabis strain might be catchy to consumers, but it requires lots of water to nurture from ground to harvest. The problem is just a stone-throw away is our giant neighbor South Africa whose borderlands cannabis farms taps lots of river waters that flow downstream to us here in Swaziland,” says Gadi Mabopane, secretary of the Native Swaziland Cannabis Growers, a union representing the interests of the country’s unlicensed cannabis growers.
In 1992, South Africa and Swaziland signed the so-called ‘Komati River Basin’ treat to peacefully manage the precious waters of the strategic Komati River that both countries share. The river forms the Maguga Dam which is the biggest irrigation dam which cannabis farmers like Gadi Mabopane also tap into.
“In 2023, the Komati River and the Maguga Dam are stressed by declining waters due to recurrent droughts. Cannabis farmers in Swaziland like us, because we are not legalized, are not prioritized in official water allocations. The water problems may kill off Swaziland’s cannabis domestic industry before it begins.” In March, the government of Swaziland and South Africa indicated that they urgently want to review how the Komati River treaty can be renegotiated and have invited citizens to submit views and plan to build more gigantic dams on the river.
Hidden threat
“From South Africa to Swaziland to Malawi and everywhere on the continent, climate- induced water woes are the biggest risk to the continent’s cannabis industry. Forget legalization, that can be solved with paperwork, but water is the enigma,” says climate campaigner O’Brien Nhachi.
“Countries in Africa have almost gone to war over borderlands water reserves before. This boom in commercial cannabis cultivation is not being matched by investment in secure water reserves or sustainable water treaties.”
For Fraser Molokote, the Lesotho Black cannabis farmer, he already senses how state- led corporatist cannabis cultivation is going to increase water tensions. “We are not against cannabis; it’s a wondeful crop to change our life conditions. But we are angry to see foreign firms who bribe state officials get prime cannabis land and be allowed to divert water from everyone else, including indigenous corn or cattle farmers.”
Original Article
