In Morocco hills, cannabis farmers bet on budding industry

[Simple Jack]

In Morocco hills, cannabis farmers bet on budding industry

In the hills of northern Morocco, vast cannabis fields are ready for harvest, but farmers complain that a government plan to market the crop legally is yet to deliver them any benefits.

The marginalised Rif region has long been a major source of illicit hashish smuggled to Europe while Moroccan authorities, wary of social unrest, have often turned a blind eye.

Growers now hope that a change in the law last year will help them profit legally from medicinal cannabis, increasingly used to treat conditions including multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.

Morocco -- the world's top producer of hashish according to the United Nations -- lies on Europe's doorstep and is potentially well placed to become a top legitimate exporter.

But a domestic crackdown on growers, slow progress in issuing licences for legal production and strong competition from European operators has left Rif farmers out in the cold.

"We're still attached to this plant, but it has stopped giving us anything," said Souad, a cannabis farmer in the village of Azila.

Like others AFP interviewed, she did not want her real name to be published. "Nobody wants it anymore," Souad shrugged. "Our lives are hard now."

Under a law the government approved in March last year, farmers will be able to form cooperatives to grow limited amounts of cannabis for processing and sale by licensed firms.

Souad, who still helps her sons on the family plot despite being in her 60s, holds tentative hope that this will help her community make a better living.

 

Demand for the Moroccan product has dropped as legal, highly regulated, production in Europe has fed the market. "If it's serious, it's a good thing," she said. "We're just farmers".

Moroccan farmers' income from cannabis fell from 500 million euros (now around $497 million) a year in the early 2000s to less than 325 million euros in 2020, according to an interior ministry study last year.

"The market has fallen drastically," said Karim, another grower.

Adding to the pressure, he was only able to farm part of his family's land in Azila this year because of water shortages driven by the worst drought in decades.

Moroccan authorities have also stepped up raids against farmers in the Rif as they seek to dismantle smuggling networks in favour of the legal trade.

"Farmers are the weak link in the supply chain, we're the ones who pay the price" for involvement in the illicit market, Karim complained. "The only option we have left is prison," said the 44-year-old.

Nourredine, another cannabis grower, said he too holds out hope that legalisation of the drug could help farmers in the Rif. However, he added, "so far nothing has changed. We're always seen as thugs and criminals, but we're just farmers."

- Complex bureaucracy -

A six-hour drive away in the capital Rabat, a government official insisted that better times were around the corner for cannabis growers.

"There may be concerns, but legalisation will dispel them because it will benefit the growers," he said, asking not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media on the subject.

The state estimates that growers could receive some 12 percent of revenues from regulated cannabis production, compared to just four percent on the black market, according to state news agency MAP.

But authorities have stressed that the process must not be rushed.

On Tuesday ANRAC, a new government agency inaugurated in June to regulate the industry, issued the first 10 licences to firms that will process the plant for therapeutic purposes.

Then it will be the turn of farmers in the Rifian provinces of Al-Hoceima, Chefchaouen and Taounate to form cooperatives and register with ANRAC with a view to receiving production licences under a quota system.

Under the 2021 law, licences to produce cannabis are granted "only within the limits of the quantities needed to meet the needs for the manufacture of products for medical, pharmaceutical and therapeutic purposes".

Cannabis farms covered 55,000 hectares (around 136,000 acres) in the northeast of the kingdom in 2019, providing livelihoods for up to 120,000 families, according to a study prior to the law being passed.

Civil society groups in the area are now mobilising to inform farmers about the technical aspects of the new system.

Some details are "complicated", said Soufiane Zahlaf, who represents Azila residents in dealings with authorities on the matter. "But if the approach of the authorities is inclusive," he said, "then great things can be achieved."

 

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/10/morocco-hills-cannabis-farmers-bet-budding-industry

[Ch@ppers]

https://hightimes.com/news/morocco-issues-first-cannabis-production-permits/

[twigs]

as they said, difficult for them now with the legal market opening up

 

they can be taken care of though by maybe concentrating on the history, classics and purity to capitalize and not letting international companies in.?

 

problem is they are (again) competing against big business but it’s not just alcohol, tobacco, pharma now.

 

 

 

[Ch@ppers]

26 minutes ago, twigs said:

 

they can be taken care of though by maybe concentrating on the history, classics and purity 

Classics have been diluted or wiped out by imported seed, purity I remember the plastic and crap in bars in the 1980's.Morocco's selling point was cheap product and closeness to Europe, now with legality everywhere they will have to up their game and compete on a level playing field. 

[twigs]

I used to love fluffy slate  

 

I assumed all the plastic shite was added in spain by uk middle men, morocco graded, spain adulterated, uk smoked it up  

[pollenlover]

Dutch gang behind 90% of plastic soap bar. They got taken out over 20 years ago, when it started to disappear. I was in prison in France with one of the smugglers that worked for them. You are bang on the money with how it was made. 

[Ch@ppers]

26 minutes ago, twigs said:

I used to love fluffy slate  

 

I assumed all the plastic shite was added in spain by uk middle men, morocco graded, spain adulterated, uk smoked it up  

I once threw 50kg of Moroccan into the med. 

[twigs]

@Ch@ppers dude!  I hope it was for the intended person..  or the other loads made it  

[Ch@ppers]

Just now, twigs said:

@Ch@ppers dude!  I hope it was for the intended person..  or the other loads made it  

The load made it, the two extra bales that didn't fit where they were supposed to were jettisoned overboard. 

[twigs]

@Ch@ppers one of the reasons why I try and get to the beach everyday  

 

I once saw a boat company add in an old boating mag in the US that said ~ “(boat company name) for when you absolutely need to be the fastest boat on the water” with a pic of their boat bing chased by the law   

 

 

[Ch@ppers]

12 minutes ago, twigs said:

@Ch@ppers

I once saw a boat company add in an old boating mag in the US that said ~ “(boat company name) for when you absolutely need to be the fastest boat on the water” with a pic of their boat bing chased by the law   

Doesn't need to be the fastest to move a ton 

 

[Nick Berry]

On 08/10/2022 at 0:09 PM, twigs said:

I used to love fluffy slate  

 

I assumed all the plastic shite was added in spain by uk middle men, morocco graded, spain adulterated, uk smoked it up  

I thought recutting hash into soapbar type products was 1st done by dutch outlaw bikers in rotterdam.

The brits in spain just copied the MO

Well that was the local legend in the 80s/90s 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Nick Berry

[twigs]

@Nick Berry I don’t know dude  I’ve never really looked into it

 

did it only go to britain too? I’ve never heard or experienced that it went anywhere else  

 

jokingly, it was probably orchestrated by banker political types so us brit’s didnt get too happy/relaxed   

 

 

[pollenlover]

There was a lower grade of hash available at this time in Europe but it was never as bad as the plastic infused shite that was being sent to the U.K. Folks wouldn't buy it. Obviously I can't speak for every country but I was very active around this time and involved in the drug trade. I lived in the South of France, most of the time, at the end of the 90's and ended up doing a couple of years jail there. Around Marseille and it's surroundings and the Cote D'Azur. The Hash there at the time was awesome. As was the hash available in Spain. It was a Hash smokers market back then. Weed was only just starting to catch on. The Hash was 99% of the time from Morocco and ranged from Blonde to pressed dark zero zero. I had a mate at the time that used to sell this lovely soft, dark, malleable Hash that blew your socks off but was so moorish it was impossible to stop smoking it. 

[Crow River]

Used to love a bit of rocky back in the eighties. Hope the growers can survive, must be a tough market these days.