The Cheeba Africa Golden Horizons, Africa Awakening webinars held on 25 November 2025, drove home one clear message: Africa is awakening, which is all well and good, but it’s now a matter of getting out of bed to take advantage of the limited opportunities available under the current restrictive regulatory regimes.
Africa’s Police-Makers Blinded by Colonial Mindsets
The high level of input from a number of African cannabis voices laid bare the many challenges facing Africa if it wishes to live up to its potential as a global player. Most of these challenges, said Silvio Bonomelli of Green Gold Global, could be traced back to the mindset of Africa’s cannabis policy-makers: “They are missing the main opportunity, which is developing local markets”
“Everywhere I go, it’s the same story” said Bonomelli, “from Asia to Latin America, the focus is on exports. It’s as if the local markets are invisible”. This sentiment was echoed by webinar host, Cheeba Africa’s Trenton Birch, who’s closing remarks summed it all up: “Africa will only really benefit economically from cannabis if it legalizes general adult use”.
Until such time as general adult-use is accepted, and that’s not on the cards anytime soon for any African country other than South Africa, the main opportunities for African cannabis players are to be a low-cost supplier into Europe.
Stefan Rohr, of the Hemp Group, a medical cannabis importer into Germany, said Africa’s biggest advantage was its cheap price point. Although cannabis prices in Germany were falling (from about 20 Euros a gram a year ago, to the current average of 8.40 Euros), there was still plenty of room for African imports, while the UK, Polish and Czech markets were also opening up.
African Cannabis Has to be More Than a Cheap Date for the First World
He said African producers needed to try and land top grade medical cannabis at around two Euros a gram (around R400/gram) as wholesalers were unlikely to pay more than four Euros in the current market and hidden import costs had to be factored in. He said producers needed to leverage their cheap labour and abundant sunlight into producing consistent quality aimed at the European mass market rather than the high end.
Rohr said that for African producers to successfully compete in Europe, EU GMP certification was non-negotiable. “EU GMP is a headache for everyone, but there’s no way around it” he said. Rohr said that freshness was a factor in supplying to Europe. He said much of the German medical cannabis market consisted of recreational users and factors such as high THC and flower freshness were important.
Agaba Tumusiime of Kind Buds Ltd in Uganda and Buddha Blaze of Spark Africa said cannabis in East Africa was becoming much more visible, with open use at festivals and sports gatherings. Neither country is planning on legalizing general adult use cannabis despite high usage among their local populations and the fact that the illegal industry keeps smallholder farmers alive. Blaze said there appeared to be a huge surge in cannabis consumption in Kenya recently, particularly in Nairobi, and that most of the cannabis consumed in Kenya was coming from Uganda and Ethiopia. This was all being supplied by illegal cannabis farmers, many under the guise of being flower producers.
How Serious is Africa About its Small-Scale Farmers? Not very!
Of the 12 African countries that have partly legalized cannabis, none appear to have a sustainable solution for integrating small-scale farmers. Blaze said an education programme was needed for African leaders. The current Health Minister in Uganda, for instance, is a prohibitionist, he said, and that the development of a cannabis sector is not going to warm up under his watch.
The situation across the continent remains the same: there is no place for small-scale farmers, even if lip service is paid to their plight.
Bonomelli said incorporating smallholders into a cannabis economy was not a straightforward frocess.
He said the Moroccan experience proved that – King Mohomed IV pardoned 4 800 jailed cannabis cultivators and gave them licenses to produce.
“Not one of them was able to produce export quality and their whole first harvest from last year remains unsold and is likely to be destroyed”. He said the same was likely to happen to this year’s harvest as traditional producers were unable to meet European standards.
He said Morocco’s successful exporters were established multinationals but that the situation could change if Morocco went ahead with plans to introduce a telemedicine framework for the local medical cannabis market.
Charity Kennedy of Botswana said that although there was excitement in that country about the development of an industrial hemp market, there was also disappointment that adult-use legalization was not on the cards. She said that until the government published regulations governing the sector, there would be anxiety amongst small-scale farmers and traditional growers that they would be left out of the equation.
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