News of the postponement of Botswana's Inaugural Hemp Busness Summit went out on social media earlier in the week, but on Saturday morning, 5 April 2025, many delegates and participants arrived at the Ba Isago Convention Centre unaware of the sudden change of plan.

Among them was Cannabiz Africa’s Africa editor John Makoni, who had travelled from Gauteng for the conference which had hoped to kickstart regulatory discussions with private sector stakeholders.

Others had travelled further – like one investor who had travelled more than 1 000 km from the Okavanga Delta to attend.  He left in a disgruntled state, saying that for him, if this was anything to go by, any thought of hemp farming now would be waste of time.

It’s understood that international partipants had received prior warning and that delegates from North America had managed to cancel their flights.

An embarrassed conference organizer, Oratile Masala explained that Government had meant to have a draft set of regulations for the hemp industry to share with conference attendees, but these ‘were not yet ready’ and it was decided to postpone the gathering to 5 July 2025.

He said those delegates that had paid for tickets to the event would be refunded. He can be contacted on +267 77963254,

Cannabiz Africa understands that opposition MP’s criticized the draft regulations drawn up by Government as being too restrictive and would not benefit small-scale farmers. In the face of this, the Botswana government decided to call off its participation in the conference, thus triggering its collapse.

Botswana had made a fanfare of the conference being symbolic of how all stakeholders could work together to draft rules for the hemp industry. It’s now clear that that was woefully wishful thinking and that aligning government interests is not an easy task.

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