Law reform, sector strategy and rural industrialisation.
Tens of thousands of smallholder households already grow cannabis in South Africa, and the 2024 Act gives them no commercial route.
Afristar has advocated for rational, scientific, common-sense cannabis policy since it was founded in 2003. Nicholas Heinamann has coordinated the SA Cannabis Parliamentary Lobby since 1996.
SA Cannabis Parliamentary Lobby begins
Hemp the Economic Imperative, presented to then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki
hemp and cannabis value chains assessed for the dtic
20,000 to 60,000
cannabis-farming households in Mpondoland alone, an estimate by the Umzimvubu Farmers Support Network. It is used in Harvesting Hope: Exploring the untapped potential of smallholder cannabis farming in South Africa, a 2023 MSc thesis (Wageningen University) by Tijmen Grooten, whose fieldwork Afristar hosted and supported. The 2021 National Cannabis Master Plan uses an estimate of 900,000 small-scale growers nationally.
Our position
Reclassify low-THC cannabis for commercial use, move it from Health to Agriculture, and regulate at the point of processing, not in the field.
Hemp and cannabis can give South Africa food, fuel, fibre, housing and medicine from one plant. Our infographic sets out the problem, the plant, the global shift and the Afristar hub model: a co-operative way to put smallholder farmers at the centre and keep processing value in rural areas. The hub figures are our own modelling, not forecasts.
Open the infographic
In ecological design the cannabis plant does many jobs. The deep tap roots bring nitrogen up, the fallen leaves make a mulch that protects the soil, and the stalk and flower give a high-value cash crop of food, fibre, fuel and medicine.
It also opens a door past the old belief that there is not enough to go around. With cannabis as an economic driver we can plan the structural transformation of the rural fabric, from social grants to an empowered, motivated citizenry working towards common goals, and change the lives of nearly half our people, the rural poor.
The value in hemp and cannabis is made at every step between the seed and the shelf. Our approach is to keep as many of those steps as possible in the places where the plant is grown, so the money stays in the rural economy.
Landrace strains and seed banking
Smallholders and cooperatives on regenerative land
Drying, decortication and extraction at local hubs
Food, fibre, fuel and medicine products
Quality, licensing and traceability
Domestic, regional and export routes
Every part of the plant has a market. This is the industrial hemp downstream processing chain.
Tap or click the chart to enlarge it. The detail follows below.
Consumer textiles: apparel, diapers, fabric, handbags, denim, shoes, fine fabrics.
Industrial textiles: twine, rope, nets, canvas, tarps, caulk, carpets, brake and clutch linings, composite moulded parts, geotextiles.
Paper and packaging: printing paper, fine and specialty papers, filter paper, newsprint, cardboard, packaging.
Building materials: fibreboard, insulation, fibreglass substitute, cement, stucco and mortar.
Foods: food protein powder and vitamins, cooking and nutritional oil, margarine.
Industrial products: car parts, bioplastics, semiconductors, oil paints, varnishes, print ink, fuel, solvents, lubricants, putty, coatings.
Personal hygiene: soap, shampoo, bath gels, cosmetics, lotions, balms.
Animal feed, protein and rich fibre.
Granola, birdseed, cereal bars, protein powder.
Oils, distillates and isolates.
Animal bedding, mulch and compost.
Boiler fuel, pyrolysis and feedstock.
Abrasives and chemicals.
Conceptualization, Motivation and Key Provisions for an Enabling Regulatory Framework for Cannabis in South Africa, by Webber Wentzel and an International Steering Committee. Commissioned and edited by Nicholas Heinamann as Interim Cannabis Coordinator at the Eastern Cape Rural Development Agency.
Economic Feasibility Study: Rapid Industrialisation of Cannabis in the Eastern Cape, by Urban Econ. Commissioned and edited at the ECRDA.
Co-developed the province's strategy with the ECRDA CEO. Coordinated a technical steering committee across DALRRD, DEDEAT, DSBD, the IDC, ECDC, provincial universities and SAHPRA. Delivered a producer training programme.
Technical lead and co-author of the Situational and Value Chain Analysis (June 2023) and the Country Competitive Analysis, Phase One (November 2023), assessing eleven hemp and cannabis value chains. The draft Hemp and Cannabis Master Plan is aligned to this research.
Afristar provides the policy research and drafting behind the SA Cannabis Lobby Group's submissions on the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill. Ras Garreth Prince, chair of the Cannabis Development Council of SA (CDCSA), presents them to Parliament. Afristar presented on hemp.
Afristar works with Garreth Prince on the court submissions and strategy in the constitutional challenge to the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act.
On the hemp amendments to the amended Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill, Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services, April 2023. It argues that industrial cannabis should be regulated at the point of processing, not in the field, citing UNCTAD and the 1961 Single Convention, and draws on Wageningen research, sponsored by Afristar, on smallholder production in the Upper Mzimvubu.
A partnership between the Western Cape branch of the Cannabis Development Council of South Africa (CDCSA) and Afristar Foundation. It was formed as an umbrella body to represent civil society, to lobby Parliament on the health and socio-economic potential of the plant, and to undo the legacy of 120 years of racist and scientifically baseless cannabis prohibition.
We advocate a rational, scientific and agricultural approach to cannabis legislation. We see the plant as South Africa's primary reconstruction and development agent, putting the country at the forefront of the emerging global cannabis industry.
Reclassify low-THC cannabis for commercial use and move it from the Department of Health to Agriculture. Build on our landrace strains, which are naturalised, drought tolerant and already grown by tens of thousands of farmers, and regulate at the point of processing, not in the field.
Access to cannabis medicine and preventative health care for all who seek it, with research based on efficacy, including indigenous knowledge and regional genetics.
Extend the Constitutional Court privacy ruling to cultivation, extraction, manufacture and sale, regulated along the lines of alcohol and tobacco.
Cannabis users are not criminals. Expunge the records, run a social equity programme for victims of the "dagga act", and restore dignity through meaningful work growing food, fibre, fuel, shelter and medicine.
We work with governments, development agencies and funders to build African cannabis and hemp value chains from policy and the rural base up. Our years of information, education and advocacy have given us a broad view of the policy and value chain that shape this sector. We are committed to the social impact of medical cannabis and industrial hemp, creating food, fuel, fibre and medicine as the basis for African rural regeneration.
