Thoko Didiza, South Africa's Minister for Agricultural Land Reform and Rural Development, in a public address to the National Assembly's National Assembly mini-plenary, formally proposed further changes to the Legalisation of Personal Use and Cultivation of Cannabis Act, which was ruled on by the Constitutional Court in 2018, in South Africa, and the South African government will, by October 2021, begin to officially The major decision to issue and monitor cannabis production licences provides scope to further promote the development of the cannabis industry and legalise medical cannabis in South Africa.

According to Didiza, the legalisation of cannabis and the commercialisation of cannabis has long been at the forefront of public debate in African governments and this decision will formalise the establishment of an interdepartmental group to guide and develop a master plan for the development of the country's cannabis industry, which will be submitted to the Ministry of Justice and agreed upon by the end of May 2021. By October, the issuance and regulation of cannabis production licences, among many other things, will officially begin. Didiza stressed that he hoped that the Judicial Council would be able to quickly remove cannabis from the general drug trafficking legislation, which would speed up the commercialisation of the cannabis industry in the first phase.

In the meantime, Didiza said that more than 43,000 hectares of land had been released for agricultural use, including land with expired leases, no ownership, no allocation and state land, etc. In 2020, South African President Ramaphosa announced that the government would set aside 700,000 hectares of state land for agricultural use, a move that would lay the groundwork for the widespread cultivation of cannabis as an agricultural crop.

Traditionally dependent on raw material exports, Africa has grown cash crops such as cocoa, cotton and maize in addition to minerals, while today's African countries have designated cannabis as a more lucrative cash crop. According to the latest statistics, cannabis is already the fastest growing industry in Africa.

Currently, the main cannabis markets in Africa are concentrated in countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Angola, Isobia, Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia and Kenya. Most of them are being invested in with precision and cooperation by Western countries to build large-scale cannabis industrial parks for industrial and large-scale production.


Pictured above is a cannabis industrial estate in the South African country of Lesotho. Cannabis greenhouses such as these use a full range of intelligent equipment, temperature and humidity control, 24-hour computer monitoring, and finally cannabis workers who have been systematically trained to pick cannabis with high efficiency and production. In Zimbabwe, cannabis has become the number one industry and the most lucrative avenue of business, favoured by North American countries. Uganda, on the other hand, is the preferred investment destination for cannabis in Canada and Germany, while a number of countries that have legalised cannabis have originated their cannabis products from the African region.

However, in order to prevent the indiscriminate abuse of cannabis cultivation, some African countries have generally adopted a cannabis censorship and licensing system that costs $30,000 for just one cannabis license, which is astronomical for many African farmers. But for developed countries with a preference for African cannabis, such as the United States, this political barrier is being stepped up to get many African countries to abandon the cannabis licensing system and allow more African farmers and cannabis businesses to get involved in the business of growing cannabis.

Of all the world's cannabis markets, Africa has the greatest potential for exploitation. A thriving cannabis industry could not only provide significant financial opportunities, but could also help address systemic poverty and food insecurity on the continent, while helping to modernize the agricultural economy.

According to Hemp Business Journal estimates, retail sales of cannabis in Africa reached approximately $15 million in 2018. By 2022, the total retail sales of cannabis in the African market will increase to $133 million.

According to Prohibition Partners research, the potential of the legal cannabis market in Africa is extremely high and is expected to reach $7.1 billion per year after 2023. If African countries fully liberalise their cannabis regimes, they will become the core region of the world for cannabis cultivation.