Talk:Hhohho

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Discussion for: Hhohho • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Hhohho treats the Hhohho Region of northern Eswatini as a cannabis growing area, with the mountains round Piggs Peak where the reports place most of the fields. It covers what sources say of cultivation there since about 2000. Eswatini's law on cannabis, the national eradication figures and the trade out of the country are treated at Eswatini.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Why Hhohho is a growing area

Paterson (2009, p. 3) names "Swaziland's Hhohho district (centred around Piggs Peak)" as one of the three districts on which the southern African cannabis trade is focused, with Pondoland and Lesotho's Mokhotlong district. His note for it cites Pillinger's ISS chapter of 2003, which places most cultivation in the north of the country without naming Hhohho.
The Inter Press Service (14 December 2001) and IRIN (17 May 2002) report farmers in the mountain valleys of northern Hhohho growing cannabis as their only cash crop.
Reuters (13 June 2005), IRIN (27 and 30 October 2006) and The New York Times (2012) report fields in Hhohho and round Piggs Peak from the field. IRIN (30 October 2006) calls Hhohho the country's main area for cultivating cannabis.
The United States report of March 2007 places the best cannabis in the Piggs Peak area and the police's eradication mainly in the north-west.
Semafor (14 May 2023) reports farmers in north-western Hhohho; the Times of Eswatini (7 March 2026) reports families growing cannabis at Maphalaleni.
The status is Active: every report above describes cannabis grown after 2000, the latest in 2026. Destruction of fields, reported in most of the sources, does not change it, since no source says that growing has ended.

Extent and border

No source read for this page maps the fields. The sources name the region (or, in Paterson and the 2003 IPS report, the "district"), its mountainous north, Piggs Peak and Maphalaleni.
The map border is approximate. It is drawn on Hhohho Region as mapped in OpenStreetMap (about 3,630 km²), the unit the sources name. The infobox area is rounded from the border.
The border takes in the whole region, including Mbabane and the country round it in the south of the region, for which no source read here reports cultivation. No source gives a smaller unit that the map data can draw.
Cultivation is also reported outside the region, and those reports are not part of this page: IRIN (2002) in the hills of central Swaziland and in the south; the United States report of 2007 round Nhlangano; the Times of Eswatini (2 February 2026) at Nkwene, in Shiselweni; Independent News Eswatini (29 October 2025) on the Nkomanzi river at Sihhoye, under Tshaneni police station, which OpenStreetMap places in Lubombo Region.
None of the four accessions from Eswatini names a place in the country. The seller's description of the Afropips line Swazi Red speaks of an "nkomati region", which is not a mapped unit, so no accession has been placed in this growing area.

Sources

Paterson (2009). The Swaziland passages of the thesis read in full: pp. 3–4 (the three districts), 72–77 (the export trade), 88 (the Piggs Peak buyer, from an interview of 2009), 90–93 (harvest, marketing and the growers' union), 106–107 (Swazi Skunk). Printed page numbers.
Inter Press Service, 14 December 2001. James Hall, from Mbabane. The Mail & Guardian carried the same report on 18 December 2001 under the headline "The pot at the end of Swazi rainbow", credited to IPS and Sapa, with a South African opinion survey added at the end. The page cites the IPS original. The report spells the dam "Magaga" once and "Maguga" once; Maguga is the dam's name.
The 70 per cent figure. Every version comes from Swaziland's council against drug and alcohol abuse, and the versions differ: "70% of the peasant farmers in the region grow marijuana as a cash crop" (IPS, 2001); about 70 per cent of farmers in Hhohho who cultivate the drug (IPS, 25 July 2003); "70 percent of farmers in this region devote part or all of their time to marijuana cultivation" (IRIN, 3 February 2006); "70% of Swaziland's Hhohho district's agricultural income is derived from cannabis" (Paterson, p. 4, citing the 2003 IPS report). The page gives the Reuters form of 2005 ("about 70 percent of small farmers in the Hhohho region … turn to dagga"), with its attribution.
IRIN, 17 May 2002, and 27 and 30 October 2006. Read in full on The New Humanitarian. The 2002 report's figure of 2,500 hectares destroyed early that year does not say where the fields were, so the page leaves it at Eswatini.
United States report, March 2007. The Swaziland entry also says that cannabis "is grown heavily around the Nkomaza River, the Mozne River, and the Mkaomevo River". The river names could not be matched to mapped rivers and are not used.
The New York Times, 2012. Lydia Polgreen's report, read in full in the reprint in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser of 15 August 2012; the newspaper's own page could not be opened.
Semafor, 14 May 2023. The "Nkomazi valley near Piggs Peak" is quoted as the report gives it; the page does not identify it with a mapped valley.
Times of Eswatini, 7 March 2026. The web edition carries the first part of the report; the rest is in the print edition, which was not read. The page uses only the web text.

Sources not used

Eswatini Observer, 25 September 2025, on fields destroyed at Nyonyane in northern Hhohho: the edition could not be retrieved.
Times of Eswatini, 26 September 2025, on 2,169 kilograms of dagga found in a homestead at Nyonyane: a seizure, with nothing on where it was grown.
IRIN, 6 September 2013: describes household growing in the mountains but names no place in the country.
IPS, 25 July 2003 (James Hall): a new road system through "the mountainous northern Hhohho region" opening up farms; it repeats the 2001 and 2002 reports and is not cited separately.