A hemp growing project which offers hope to small farmers in the poverty stricken Eastern Cape could be derailed because hemp is still an illegal substance.
Department of Health rules which lump hemp together with dagga could scupper plans for the effective mass production and marketing of the fibrous hemp plant.
"The status of the hemp plant is still ( in South Africa ) exactly the same as dagga, but the narcotic ingredient of the hemp plant is much less than the dagga plant," said Andreas Pluddemann, a scientist at the Medical Research Council.
Pluddemann said it was time for a review of legislation, especially as special permits were being granted in the Eastern Cape.
"There is no real reason not to revisit the legislation other than it might be technically difficult to administer," he said.
Amendments to the 1965 Medicine and Related Substances Act, which would insert a section dealing with industrial hemp regulations, also have to be approved by the Medicines Control Council ( MCC ).
The MCC currently authorises two special permits, one for importing seeds and the other for growing hemp, for the Eastern Cape pilot project.
The provincial agriculture department said hemp cultivation in South Africa started in 1999 through collaboration between the Agricultural Research Council, the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, government and the private sector.
"Hemp is foreign to us and we were using hemp cultivars from Hungary, Yugoslavia, France, Hungary and Poland," said Monde Sotana, a provincial agriculture official.
Sotana said the current phase began after initial trials showed hemp could be grown in local conditions.
The latest phase includes large-scale hemp cultivation by pioneer farmers, training and development skills, co-operative agreements with hemp producing countries, commercialisation and marketing, and a "hemp seed multiplication scheme".
Sotana said about 180 small-scale farmers are involved, an area of about 50ha is under cultivation, and farming equipment including tractors had been bought.
"Hemp breeding has progressed to a level on which we can register a South African cultivar. A multiplication scheme on local hemp seed can be done then, and seed will be affordable to the farmers," said Sontana, adding that 10 oil pressing machines and ten oil filters had been bought to help farmers produce hemp oil.
The versatile hemp plant is grown mainly for fibre, and secondly for oil, and has a variety of other uses, including composite building materials, bio-fuel and textiles.
DaimlerChrysler was mentioned by Agriculture Minister Thoko Didiza last year as being interested in using local hemp to manufacture dashboards.
Didiza said there would be no drive for "massive production" until the pilot project trials were finalised and unless the Department of Health removed hemp from the cannabis schedule of drugs.
According to self-styled housing innovator Andre du Plessis, who has been on a one-man crusade for the past four years to get government to consider building cannabis homes for the poor, an "economic platform" was created when using these materials.
"When building housing from an agricultural product, an economic platform is created in the rural areas, which in turn could impact on rural-to-urban migration," he said, adding that government should consider the agricultural benefits to be gained if the law on cannabis was changed.
