An SA company that recently exported 320kg of medicinal cannabis to Europe says it is blazing a trail for the country’s fledging commercial cannabis industry to grow to support sustainable employment and much-needed economic growth.
Felbridge, cultivator and supplier of cannabis and hemp starting materials, exported SA’s first commercial shipment of dry cannabis flower from the Cape Town International Airport to Switzerland recently.
Felbridge CFO Barry Zetler said the export was the first of several shipments to a Swiss client, after their historic shipment of cannabis in vitro culture to a licensed producer in North Macedonia. Cannabis in vitro culture relates to cannabis cells that are grown in a laboratory using cuttings from a mother plant.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, during his state of the nation address (Sona) in February 2020, announced that the government will “open up and regulate” the commercial use of hemp products, providing opportunities to small-scale farmers, “and formulate policy on the use of cannabis products for medicinal purposes, to build this industry in line with global trends”.
Up until Ramaphosa’s 2020 announcement, the regulatory environment pertaining to the development of the cannabis industry was stifling and no licences had been issued, said Zetler. “But soon after we received our licence in 2020 we were able to ramp up our operations,” he said.
Ramaphosa’s announcement followed a ruling by the Constitutional Court in September 2018 that cannabis can be grown and smoked at home for personal consumption. The apex court found that the ban on cannabis was unconstitutional and ruled that parliament had two years to amend the law. The Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill was developed to address that.
A report released in 2019 by European-based market intelligence and strategic consultancy Prohibition Partners showed that Africa’s legal cannabis industry could generate more than $7.1bn (R123bn) a year by 2023 if more of the continent’s big markets open up and follow the trend of legalisation seen in the US, Canada and Europe.
Agriculture, land reform & rural development minister Thoko Didiza, during her budget vote speech in May, said the legalisation and commercialisation of cannabis have been at the forefront of public debate and top of policymakers’ agenda globally.
“An interdepartmental team comprising representatives from various departments was established to guide the development of the national cannabis master plan with [the department] as the convener,” said Didiza, whose department plans to begin issuing and monitoring permits for the production of hemp in SA from October.
Didiza’s spokesperson, Reggie Ngcobo, said the master plan was presented to the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) in June, as part of the department’s consultation process.
The purpose of the master plan is to provide a broad framework for the development and growth of the SA cannabis industry to contribute to economic development, job creation, rural development and poverty alleviation.
The master plan also calls for the signing of the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill into law during the 2022/2023 financial year.
It is estimated that more than 900,000 small-scale farmers are growing dagga — especially in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal — and the aim of the draft master plan, among other things, is to foster their growth and inclusion into markets.
“This industry is new, but we have made very good progress to date. We have received orders from licensed facilities in Spain, Switzerland and the UK,” said Zetler.
The company, which is a member of the SA National Seed Organisation, said it expected to commence with cannabis and hemp seed production in the fourth quarter of the year.
“We supply local licensed cultivators with genetics, which include seeds, rooted clones, as well as tissue culture. This is a very exciting sector for us to be in. We believe it has a lot of potential to provide employment opportunities, skills development, and bringing investment into the sector,” said Zetler.
“Felbridge is laying a solid foundation upon which the industry can grow from.”
He said the sector could make a “significant” contribution to GDP in the next three to five years if it is allowed to grow and thrive, adding that Felbridge was assisting emerging licensed cultivators with off-take opportunities, both locally and abroad.
“It’s important that we have answered the call of President Ramaphosa during the Sona in 2020, when he called for the development of cannabis and hemp in line with the global trend. We believe we have taken a giant step.”
Another player in the emerging industry is entrepreneur Lubabalo Mnyaka, a medical microbiologist who owns Eljays Institute of Science, a science-based company focused on innovation in pharmaceuticals, healthcare, engineering, space, agriculture and technology. The company develops and sells Cycli Rec, a broad-spectrum cannabidiol solution aimed at helping cyclists with muscle repair and recovery.
Johannesburg-based Mnyaka, a cyclist himself from the Eastern Cape’s Pondoland — SA’s “cannabis belt”, said he felt embarrassed that no cannabis product was manufactured from the region.
He said through Cycli Rec he wanted to inspire ideas and possibilities by demonstrating the cannabis value chain through his product, and encourage the “Pondoland locals to continue with the pursuit to legalise and commercialise their harvest. The cannabis value chain is big, starting from genetics to a variety of products. Cycli Rec currently imports its raw materials from the US and Canada”.
He said many people swear that cannabidiol helped them to deal with health conditions such as anxiety, pain, sleep disorders, stress and osteoarthritis.
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