The Cannabis Regulatory Authority (CRA) and the Malawi Bureau of Standards (MBS) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding which will see the two bodies working together to uphold quality, safety, and compliance within the cannabis industry in Malawi.
According to CRA Director General Dr Ketulo Salipira, among others, the two institutions will be enforcing compliance to high standards of quality and the safety of those consuming food and non-food products made from industrial hemp.
Malawi Bureau of Standards Director General Benard Thole said the MoU will also help to promote standardisation in cannabis products . Among others, MBS will be testing products from Cannabis to check quality.
In April 2021, President Chakwera suggested that the country should diversify forex earning crops to complement tobacco which has been Malawi’s mainstay since independence. The president made the remarks at the opening of tobacco selling season that year, emphasizing that Malawi should switch to other cash crops like cannabis, which was legalized by his administration in 2020 for industrial and medicinal use.
He said Malawi’s tobacco industry is dying largely because of low demand on the international market due to ongoing global anti-smoking campaigns, championed by the World Health Organization.
“And we need an exit strategy to transition our farmers to crops that are more sustainable and more profitable,” Chakwera said. “I am therefore calling on the Ministry of Agriculture to begin consultations with all stakeholders to come up with a timeframe within which Malawi’s economy will be completely weaned from tobacco.”
Following the authorization of cannabis growing, a regulatory institute, Cannabis Regulatory Authority (CRA), was put in place. CRA board Chakwera proceeded to set US$10,000 (about K8 million) fee for medicinal cannabis cultivation and US$2,000 (about K1.6 million) for cultivation of industrial hemp.
However, President Chakwera noted that the cannabis license fees set by CRA were prohibitive and ordered for their revision to allow ordinary Malawians to be involved in the production of the crop. He made the remarks when he went to Parliament to answer questions from Members of Parliament. He stated that his government cannot allow Malawi citizens to be spectators of the Cannabis industry hence the prohibitive fees should be revisited.
