KETAMA, Morocco — 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.
اضافة اعلان
The marginalized
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
UN — 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 licenses 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.
“If it’s
serious, it’s a good thing,” she said.
‘We’re just farmers’
Demand for the Moroccan product has dropped as legal, highly regulated,
production in Europe has fed the market.
Moroccan
farmers’ income from cannabis fell from 500 million euros 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 favor 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 legalization 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 legalization will dispel them because it will benefit the
growers,” he said, asking not to be identified because he was not authorized 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 licenses under a quota system.
Under the 2021
law, licenses 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 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 mobilizing 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.”
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