It appears that only a handful of farmers will be able to cash in on the new opportunities generated by Zimbabwe’s legalisation of cannabis production for medicinal and scientific purposes.

Ben Percell-Gilpin, CEO of the Commercial Farmer’s Union of Zimbabwe, said the union had not been consulted and still required finer details on the issue, but he expected the new legislation to benefit primarily foreign investors already in the business and looking for other opportunities.

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The majority of farmers would struggle to take advantage of the opportunity, as cannabis production for medicinal and scientific purposes was a highly specialised field requiring extreme security measures that were out of most farmers’ scope.

Percell-Gilpin said he had not seen an official publication on what a production permit would cost, but assumed it would be prohibitive.

According to various media reports, a five-year production licence would cost US$50 000 (about R631 000) and farmers would have to make an annual return payment of US$15 000 (R189 000).

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A production permit in South Africa costs approximately R24 000.

He was extremely pleased, however, about reports that the Zimbabwean government would soon change legislation that grouped hemp with cannabis, which was used as a drug.

“This will open up a new industry and value-chain in the industrial hemp side and is likely to have a major impact on farming incomes,” he said.

Griffith Molewa, head of the law enforcement unit at the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority, was surprised by the media coverage reporting that Zimbabwe had become the second African country after Lesotho to legalise cannabis production for medicinal and scientific purposes, as South Africa had already done so at the end of last year.

“We’ve so far received twenty production applications, which we’re currently screening,” he said.

This was according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which stated in a disease outbreak report that the SA case was the largest listeriosis outbreak ever detected.

It said that the “food processing company” linked to the outbreak by South Africa’s Department of Health, as well as three “retailers”, had exported affected products to Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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“All of these countries have issued recalls for the implicated products,” the WHO stated.

Rwanda has kept in place a ban imposed in December on the import of several SA food products, including fresh fruit. According to the Rwandan daily, The New Times, the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry had stated that the ban would remain in place until South Africa could confirm the outbreak had been brought under control.

South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said last week in a statement that government remained concerned that other African countries continued to enforce bans on food products from South Africa.

The DTI said these bans even applied to products and commodities unrelated to the current outbreak, including meat and meat products, fruits and vegetables.

The statement followed a meeting of Southern African Development Community (SADC) health ministers in Gauteng, during which South Africa’s health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, “clarified the safety of meat produced in South Africa”.

According to the WHO, 12 out of 15 countries had recalled and banned imports of affected processed meat products. Another three countries had banned imports of additional food products.

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The WHO said that Namibia had recently reported a confirmed case of listeriosis.

“It is important that this case and other possible cases be properly investigated and the implicated food sources identified,” the organisation stated.

The WHO advocated proactive food safety processes but did not recommend “excessive” actions that would interfere with travel or trade in terms of the International Health Regulations.

Farmer’s Weekly is currently awaiting a response from the DTI to a query on which countries have banned imports of food products from South Africa.

A query was also submitted to the Rwandan agriculture ministry.

Farmers in Botswana have expressed concern about that country’s government continuing to allocate low budgets to the agricultural sector.

This is in contravention of the United Nation’s Malabo Declaration which requires governments to allocate at least 10% of their national budgets to the sector.

Botswana’s minister of finance and economic development, Kenneth Matambo, announced in his recent 2017/2018 budget speech that the Ministry of Agricultural had been allocated P1,34 billion (about R1,65 billion), or 3% of the national budget.

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Responding to the budget, farmers in Botswana accused the government of ignoring the Malabo Declaration by allocating low levels of funding to the development of the agricultural sector.

In an interview with Farmers Weekly, Botswana-based farmer and agricultural researcher, Pearl Ranna, said that due to low budget allocations to the agricultural sector, farmers in that country were expected to continue receiving limited financial support this year.

This could result in reduced food production by domestic farmers, which would necessitate high levels of food imports, she said.

According to Ranna, limited funding for the sector was hampering infrastructure development for livestock farming and other agricultural development programmes.

Chairperson of the Botswana Horticultural Council, Michael Diteko, said all sub-sectors of agriculture in Botswana needed more funding in order to grow.

“All the sectors should embrace new technology which requires extra funding. Countries such as Ethiopia, for example, have invested in greenhouses that are rented to farmers to increase agricultural production.

We have to move away from [dryland] to irrigation in our crop production, this means funding for infrastructure.”

As a result of limited funding, the agricultural sector in Botswana had seen no significant growth in the past decade.

“The sector is on a precipice, the contribution to GDP is stuck between 1,8% and 2,1%,” Diteko said.

The Malabo Declaration was signed in 2014 by 20 African leaders to ensure that agriculture remained high on the continent’s development agenda.

CARE International, the Graça Machel Trust, and the Food, Agriculture Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) welcomed the first Malabo Biennial Report.

According to Dr Tobias Takavarasha, CEO of FANRPAN, the timely release of the report was a demonstration of commitment by the member states and the African Union (AU) to increase investment in agriculture.

The objective of the Malabo report was to end hunger and halve poverty by 2025. Takavarasha said this called for a significant shift in the way agriculture has been handled across the continent.

Despite the threat of climate change, a significant number of AU member states continue to rely on dryland agriculture.

According to Michelle D Carter, deputy managing regional director of CARE International for Southern Africa, the future of agriculture depended on the management of climate change.

There was a need for national investments targeted at efforts that address the threat to food and nutrition security by the changing climate. It was therefore disappointing that only Mauritius was on track with the commitment to enhance resilience to climate variability.

“We are hopeful that governments will implement recommendations to improve adoption and uptake of climate-resilient agriculture by smallholder farmers, especially women,” she said.

Climate change threatened global food security, the eradication of poverty and sustainable development, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity and livestock were a significant driver of climate change, trapping heat in the earth’s atmosphere and triggering global warming.

Climate change had both direct and indirect effects on agricultural productivity, including changing rainfall patterns, drought, flooding and the geographical redistribution of pests and diseases.

The FAO was supporting countries to both mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change through a wide range of research-based and practical programmes and projects, as an integral part of the 2030 agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The outbreak started in Chinsali, and has since spread to four other districts, namely Chama, Isoka, Shiwang’andu and Mpika.

The Minister of Livestock and Fisheries in the country, Michael Katambo, said in a news report that the Zambian government had thus far spent over two million kwachas (roughly R2,5 million) in an attempt to maintain the disease, and that strict quarantine measures had been implemented, as well as a ban on pork trade.

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He said the disease was a devastating blow to the agriculture industry and food security in the country, and that government loans would be made available to help affected farmers resume production as soon as possible after the eradication of the disease.

Dr Dorothea Mostert, a veterinarian at CS Vet, a veterinary consultancy, said it was particularly difficult to prevent and manage African swine fever in Zambia, as the virus was endemic to the country, which resulted in sporadic outbreaks.

The large population of free-range pigs and informal trade also increased the risks of an outbreak, and made it difficult to control the virus once an outbreak occurred.

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Almost all the affected villages in Zambia farmed pigs using traditional free-range management systems, with animals of all ages showing clinical signs.

According to a report issued by the World Organisation for Animal Health, the current outbreak was a result of the illegal movement of pigs and pork products.

There was currently no vaccine or cure for the virus, which usually resulted in the death of all infected animals.

The standard operating procedure during an outbreak was therefore to cull infected animals, as well as implementing quarantine to prevent the disease spreading.

“Strict biosecurity is needed to prevent the virus from spreading to commercial piggeries, which would include the use of strong enclosures that would be able to keep affected animals, as well as warthogs and soft ticks, which are natural reservoirs of the virus, out. [Furthermore], strict access, a very high standard of hygiene and not feeding pigs swill or any feed that might contain the virus [may also contain the disease],” Mostert said.