Hhohho
More actions
| Hhohho | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Geography | |
| Country | Eswatini |
| Province/State | Hhohho Region |
| Coordinates | -26.09, 31.32 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 3,600 km² |
| Terrain | Steep, hilly country with narrow mountain valleys; approximately Hhohho Region |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Hhohho is a cannabis growing area in the north of Eswatini, named after the Hhohho Region. The historian Craig Paterson counts Swaziland's Hhohho district, centred on Piggs Peak, among the three districts on which the southern African cannabis trade is focused; the others are Mpondoland in South Africa and the Mokhotlong District of Lesotho.[1]: 3 Reports since 2001 describe smallholders in the region's mountains growing cannabis, called insangu in siSwati and dagga in the English of the region, as a cash crop and selling it to buyers from South Africa.[2][3]
Reports of cultivation
One of Paterson's informants described buying cannabis near Piggs Peak around 2000. A local man would set off over the mountain with the buyers' empty ice-cream tubs and come back the next evening with them packed with cut heads of cannabis. In the informant's words it was "the best ganja I've ever seen in Swaziland".[1]: 88
In December 2001 the Inter Press Service reported a police statement that joint operations by the Swazi and South African police had found and destroyed half the cannabis crop of the "mountainous northern Hhohho region". Sipho Vilakati, a member of parliament for the area, said that farmers complained that their livelihood depended on growing dagga because there were no alternative crops. The agriculture ministry had tried since 1998 to introduce other cash crops suited to the mountain climate, but farmers said that poor roads kept their produce from market. An assistant superintendent of police said that the mountain homesteads could once be reached only by spotting them from a helicopter and cutting a path through the bush, until a road network was built with the Maguga Dam.[2]
In May 2002 IRIN wrote of farmers "confined to the narrow mountain valleys of the northern Hhohho Region", who said that nothing but cannabis flourished there and that it was their only cash crop. It reported that the roads built for the Maguga Dam, in northern Swaziland, had opened up areas that had been out of reach, which it called prime cultivation land from which South African dealers drew their supplies.[3] Simon Pillinger, writing for the Institute for Security Studies in 2003, put most of Swaziland's dagga in the north of the country, on steep, hilly ground not easily reached by road, which limited the ability of the police to patrol the region.[4]: 99
In June 2005 Reuters followed a police drug squad led by Ngwane Dlamini, head of criminal investigation in Hhohho, to a field north of Piggs Peak. The report gave the estimate of Swaziland's Council Against Drug and Alcohol Abuse that about 70 per cent of small farmers in Hhohho, where the mountainous terrain makes maize hard to grow, turned to dagga. A widow with five children said that she grew 30 plants hidden in the undergrowth behind her home and sold the crop to a man from South Africa who came every month, on foot across the mountains. A member of the squad said that the banks of every stream and river were full of dagga.[5]
In October 2006 IRIN described a five-kilometre trek by a unit of 30 police officers through the bush of northern Hhohho to a clearing of hundreds of cannabis plants over six feet tall. Shovels, plastic sheeting and watering cans lay around the plot, but the growers were not there. Albert Mkhatshwa, head of the police anti-drug unit, said that the plants were being grown by villagers close by and that more would probably be growing on the same spot a month after spraying.[6] In another report that month IRIN called Hhohho the main area for cultivating cannabis in the country. Two young men who had lived there all their lives said that friends and relatives had grown it for generations. One of them said that a 10-kilogram bag of cannabis fetched R3,000, against R80 for the same weight of maize, if it could be sold to someone taking it out of the country, and that growers hid their plots in inaccessible places and worked them early in the morning to avoid the police.[7]
A United States report of 2007 placed the country's highest-quality cannabis in the Piggs Peak area and said that the police reported their eradication mainly in the north-west. From January to September 2006 police drug units destroyed 437.5 hectares, almost all of it around Piggs Peak and Nhlangano, in the south.[8]
In 2012 The New York Times reported from the hills round Piggs Peak, in the mountainous north-west, that grandmothers raising orphaned grandchildren grew cannabis there to feed them and keep them in school. The women planted in fields hidden deep in the forest, often hours away on foot, and sold to middlemen from South Africa who came through the villages at harvest; most made less than $400 a crop. The police, the report said, often searched for fields in March and April, just before the harvest, and burned them.[9]
In 2023 Semafor reported that many cannabis farmers in north-western Hhohho, who sold their crop locally and at a premium in South Africa, opposed the government's medical cannabis bill despite arrests under the existing law; one feared that rich companies would become their competitors. Tourists, it wrote, visited places known for cultivation in the "Nkomazi valley near Piggs Peak".[10] In March 2026 the Times of Eswatini reported from Maphalaleni, a constituency of Hhohho known for its maize, that a number of families there also grew dagga as a source of income. Alpheus Mhlanga, of the local inner council, said that some pupils of the high school who took part in the trade had become breadwinners for their households, which made it hard for their parents to discipline them.[11]
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Paterson, C. (2009). Prohibition and resistance: a socio-political exploration of the changing dynamics of the southern African cannabis trade, c. 1850 – the present (MA thesis). Rhodes University.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hall, James (14 December 2001). "Culture-Swaziland: time up for traditional marijuana smokers". Inter Press Service. Mbabane. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Focus on marijuana cultivation". IRIN. Mbabane. 17 May 2002. Retrieved 14 October 2026 – via The New Humanitarian.
- ↑ Pillinger, Simon (2003). "Swaziland". In Gastrow, Peter (ed.). Penetrating State and Business: Organised Crime in Southern Africa, Volume One (PDF). ISS Monograph Series. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies. pp. 95–109.
- ↑ Harrison, Rebecca (13 June 2005). "The weed that feeds tiny Swaziland". IOL. Reuters. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ "Fighting a losing battle against cannabis growers". IRIN. 27 October 2006. Retrieved 19 October 2026 – via The New Humanitarian.
- ↑ "Illegal cannabis could become legal 'Swazi Gold'". IRIN. 30 October 2006. Retrieved 14 October 2026 – via The New Humanitarian.
- ↑ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (March 2007). "Africa and the Middle East". International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (Report). United States Department of State. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Polgreen, Lydia (15 August 2012). "Grandmas farm marijuana to make ends meet in Swaziland". Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The New York Times. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Mbuyisa, Cebelihle (14 May 2023). "Eswatini wants legal cannabis but locals say that's bad for business". Semafor. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
- ↑ Simelane, Khaya (7 March 2026). "Parents: dagga-growing pupils force 2 head teachers to quit". Times of Eswatini. Retrieved 19 October 2026.