Hemp is among several specialty crops the government plans to advance, according to Frank Magama, CEO of the country’s Tobacco Research Board (TRB), who said his agency is also looking into the potential of chia and stevia. TRB will encourage Zimbabwe’s government-owned tobacco enterprises to adopt those plants as “economically sustainable alternative crops to tobacco.”
Tobacco makes up roughly 20% of the Zimbabwe’s exports, but contraction in the industry has contributed to stagnation which has beset the country’s economy for nearly two decades despite the African nation’s vast wealth of natural resources.
TRB’s Plant Breeding Division has already embarked on projects aimed at developing hemp varieties suited to Zimbabwe’s climate and soil conditions, with research ongoing at the Kutsaga Research Station in Harare, and two additional facilities in the municipalities of Banket and Makoholi in Masvingo province in the southeastern part of the country. TRB is also in discussions with training institutions regarding collaboration in industrial hemp genetics and breeding, Magama said.
“We have plans to produce industrial hemp seed in the long term after our Plant Breeding Division completes current projects on developing varieties suited to the Zimbabwean environment,” Magama told The Sunday Mail.
Photo by Tanner Marquis
