It all sounds fantastic with Highlands saying……
With Canna-Tract, companies can cultivate cannabis to their specific requirements under the care of Highland’s highly specialized team of agronomists, scientists, pharmacists and engineers, who take full responsibility for the growing, harvesting and processing of the cannabis flower. Clients can select or supply genetics and choose the final product form (flower or extract). The minimum grow commitment is 0.5 hectares. Various payment plans are available. Plants are RFID tagged and grown under net house to GAP requirements. Clients receive monthly grow reports and have access to 24-hour CCTV feed. After harvesting and processing the product is stored at Highlands’ warehouse until it is ready to be shipped to its final destination.
Our questions would be
A) “Companies can cultivate cannabis”. What does this mean for local smallholders who are a large part of Lesotho’s rural population?
B) We believe that our cost per hectare model will result in one of the lowest cultivation costs per gram today,” says Highlands Investments Managing Director, Mark Corbett. If the model produces such low cost cannabis – what are the farmers / contractors being paid? Is it economical for the growers?
C) The sites are owned by Highland already, so it doesn’t look like much of an opportunity for locals unless you have money to invest.
Sounds as though wealthy local businessmen/women will be able to buy in and then contract out the labor of the actual growing.. costs will be kept as low as possible so that Highland and the local businesses profit whilst labour gets little reward. Some might call this exploitation.
Here’s the Press Release
Highlands Investments Launches Africa’s First Contract Cultivation Offering