The Zetlers, a prominent strawberry-farming family near Stellenbosch, have made the move into the lucrative cannabis industry.
Having farmed strawberries, tomatoes and peppers in the Stellenbosch area for over 50 years, the Zetlers’s focus is now on growing cannabis. The family is using Felbridge, their 42,000m² greenhouse facility in the Western Cape, to produce medicinal cannabis.
Felbridge applied to the SA Health Products Regulatory Authority for a cannabis cultivation licence in October 2017.
“The application process took about two years to complete, but this is expected with the strict guidelines demanded by any medical products,” said Felbridge CFO Barry Zetler.
The Zetler family’s experience in cultivation and greenhouse technologies means they are “well placed to be at the forefront of the South African medicinal cannabis market”, according to the Felbridge website.
“Being a new crop to us, it was a challenge to meet all of the guidelines and learn all of the specifications necessary for the licence,” Zetler recalled when asked about difficulties with the application process.
Business Day reported in September that the global market for medical cannabis is now estimated at $150bn and could reach $272bn in 2028, according to Barclays Bank.
Felbridge mainly produces cannabidiol-related (CBD) products, but Zetler said: “If regulation and legislation opened up, we would be flexible enough to take on other challenges and move into other spaces in the industry.”
The Zetler family continues to grow their other crops, producing primarily strawberries. Zetler said he did not see the family abandoning their traditional crops in favour of cannabis, but they would take “a measured approach” and assess the direction each industry takes.
Agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo said: “I do not think there will be a major substitution between traditional agricultural crops and cannabis.
“In the quest to grow the agricultural sector, lawmakers are beginning to look towards growing industries such as cannabis. There needs to be a re-evaluation of cannabis from a drug to a legitimate industry,” said Sihlobo.
Sihlobo said there was great potential for the industry to grow, but he did not think this would result in an exodus from farming traditional crops to other burgeoning agricultural industries such as cannabis.
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