Nkhotakota
More actions
| Nkhotakota | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| Geography | |
| Country | Malawi |
| Province/State | Central Region |
| District | Nkhotakota District |
| Coordinates | -12.85, 34.09 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 4,300 km² |
| Terrain | River banks, forest reserves and the hills of the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve; approximately Nkhotakota District |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 2 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Nkhotakota is a cannabis growing area in the Central Region of Malawi, drawn on Nkhotakota District. Cannabis, called chamba in Malawi, was grown on a large scale in the district along the banks of the Lupache river, Peter Gastrow of the Institute for Security Studies wrote in 2003, drawing on information from the Malawi police.[1]: 7–8 Since then police, forestry officers and game rangers have destroyed fields grown inside the district's reserves: more than 4 hectares in the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve in 2015[2] and "hundreds of hectares" in the Dwambazi forest reserve in 2017.[3] A report of 2022 by the Platform for Investigative Journalism, from growers' fields on the edge of the wildlife reserve, says that the community there had grown the crop for decades.[4]
Geography
Gastrow's account names two places in Malawi where cannabis was grown on a large scale: Nkhotakota District along the Lupache river and the Likwawa hills of Mzimba District to the north. It was grown on a smaller scale in the Ntchisi, Kasungu, Ntcheu and Dedza districts.[1]: 7–8
The later reports describe fields in and beside the district's reserves. The fields destroyed in 2015 were inside the wildlife reserve.[2] The Dwambazi forest reserve, raided by the district's forestry department in 2017, covers 36,600 hectares; it was gazetted in 1996 and is the catchment of the Dwambazi, Mkoma, Khuyu, Luluzi and Chiphumbulu rivers. The district forestry officer, George Ziphophe, said that growers cleared land there because its soils were fertile enough to farm without fertiliser and held enough moisture for summer planting.[3] The fields visited in 2022 lay in hilly terrain on the edge of the wildlife reserve, about 61 kilometres east of Nkhamenya, among farms of maize, cassava and soya beans.[4]
The crop and its growers
Gastrow wrote that poverty had led many Malawians to grow chamba, which needed none of the extra inputs other crops did and fetched better prices than other cash crops. Much of the growing was done by women; the selling and trafficking fell mostly to men.[1]: 7
The growers whom the Platform for Investigative Journalism met in 2022 were about 15 men and women; its report calls their crop chamba or Malawi Gold. According to the report, the community used the thick forest, the difficult terrain and the remoteness of the area to keep the state away. One grower's field measured a little over 30 by 40 metres; he expected 200,000 kwacha from each harvest and harvested twice a year. Pointing to the wildlife reserve, he said that bigger fields lay there whose owners made "millions per harvest". The group had formed a cooperative and was waiting for seed to join the licensed cannabis industry that Malawi opened in 2020. The growers said they would prefer Malawi Gold itself to be made legal; one said that it was easy to grow, with no need for a greenhouse or fertiliser.[4]
Operations against the fields
In October 2000 the police ran an operation in the Nkhotakota and Mzimba areas that destroyed 31.5 tons of the crop growing on 51.75 hectares.[1]: 8 In September 2015 the Nkhotakota police and officials of the wildlife reserve uprooted more than 4 hectares of cannabis grown inside the reserve and destroyed more than 4.5 tons of it.[2]
In October 2017 the Nkhotakota forestry department, with armed rangers of African Parks, which manages the wildlife reserve, raided the Dwambazi forest reserve and destroyed the cannabis and the beans, soya beans and maize of the farmers who had cleared land there. Earlier attempts to remove the farmers, particularly those from the areas of Traditional Authorities Kanyenda and Kafuzira, had failed; a district profile of 2009 counted 145 households farming about 283 hectares inside the reserve.[3]
The 2022 report says that the police were often paid to stay away and that operations against the fields were occasional. One grower said that when officers came in a private car to seize cannabis the year before, the community chased them and set fire to the car.[4]
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected |
|---|---|---|
| AFP-MWI-CEN-0120040001 | Malawi Gold 2004 | |
| RSC-MWI-CEN-0120190001 | Malawi Gold 2019 IBL |
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See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Gastrow, P. (2003). Mind-blowing: the cannabis trade in southern Africa (Report). Cape Town: Institute for Security Studies.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Banda, Geoffrey (19 January 2016). "Nkhotakota recording high cases of Indian hemp possession". Malawi24. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Forestry Department destroys chamba planted in reserve". The Nation. Blantyre. 31 October 2017. Retrieved 21 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "Cannabis dreams up in smoke". Platform for Investigative Journalism. Lilongwe. 9 April 2022. Retrieved 21 October 2026.