CTAA chair Tebogo Tlhopane unveiled the platform at the Cheeba Cannabis and Hemp Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre on 29 May 2026, saying this marked “the first time a structured, voluntary compliance and participation ecosystem has been deployed for South Africa’s cannabis value chain”.
The platform, accessed via the organization’s website, www.ctaa.co.za, is now live.
Tlhopane told delegates at the Cheeba Summit there were probaby over 9 000 cannabis dispensaries, clubs, and retail outlets operating across South Africa.
“Yet the legacy farmers and rural growers who have cultivated cannabis for generations remain largely locked out of this supply chain”, he said. “They grow the flower, but they don’t supply the stores. The value chain has grown around them, not with them.”
Tlhopane said the CTAA’s solution to the problem was to offer a compliance platform for stakeholders. He described it as a patent-pending, closed-loop value chain system designed to be cheap, minimize the barriers to entry, ubiquitous and user-friendly.
He said the portal bought together the full value chain – cultivators, producers, manufacturers, extractors, and operators in between — under a single compliance and participation framework.
“The cannabis industry has grown faster than its infrastructure — and nowhere is that gap felt more than by the legacy farmers and rural communities who have been growing for generations. There are thousands of dispensaries across this country, but the people growing the flower are not supplying them” he said.
We built this system so that a grower in a rural area can participate in a credible, quality-assured value chain from cultivation all the way to market. This is about giving them a seat at the table — with the lowest possible barriers to entry.”
According to the CTAA, this is what the portal provides:
Quality cultivation and tracking — integrated with the Cultivara system to monitor how flowers are grown, ensuring consistent quality from the ground up;
Chain-of-custody traceability — every step from grower to processor to retailer tracked and verified
Mobile testing laboratories — in partnership with accredited testing labs, mobile units travel to farming communities to test flowers on site, removing barriers of distance and cost
Food-grade testing partnerships — specialised testing labs for cannabis-infused food products (edibles, tinctures, oils), ensuring safety and compliance
Standardised documentation — every participant supplies required documentation within the portal, creating a single source of truth for compliance
The pricing model is deliberately skewed in favour of legacy growers who are essentially subsidized by retailers.
CTTA’s has a tiered pricing model for the four categories:
Legacy Growers:
Compliance Onboarding Fee: 0
Monthly Subs: 0
Non-Traditional Rural Farmer:
Compliance Onboarding Fee: R1 500
Monthly Subs: R425
Township Retailers:
Compliance Onboarding Fee: R2 000
Monthly Subs: R450
Suburban Retailers
Compliance Onboarding Fee: R5 000
Monthly Subs: R900
Although the onboarding process is divided into the four categories above, the CTAA says this encompasses a broad range of stakeholders, from legacy farmers and rural growers, cultivators, producers and manufacturers, extractors, cannabis clubs and retail operators, courier and logistics providers. ancillary suppliers, researchers and community-based operators
The organization says stakeholder briefings ad demonstrations are available on request.
For further details, contact:
Tebogo G. Tlhopane
Chairman, Cannabis Trade Association Africa (CTAA)
Email: tebogog@ctaa.org.za
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