Talk:Mpondoland

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Discussion for: Mpondoland • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Mpondoland is a Growing Area in the Wild Coast growing region: the core of Eastern Mpondoland round Lusikisiki and Port St Johns, in the Eastern Cape. Pondoland and Eastern Pondoland are other names used by the sources. It covers the growers, trade, plant names, vouchers and eradication the sources describe there. The rest of the Wild Coast is treated on the region's page; South African law on cannabis at Cannabis in South Africa.

Data verification

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

Discussion

Why Mpondoland is a growing area

• Kepe (2003, pp. 607–608) states that Eastern Pondoland has produced the most cannabis on the Wild Coast for many decades and that the Lusikisiki area has long been known for the best dagga in the country. The paper is a case study of a village in the Lusikisiki area, 1996–2000.
• Paterson (2009, p. 3) names Pondoland, centred round Lusikisiki, as one of the three districts on which the trade of South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini centres.
• Dumani and colleagues (2024) collected eight vouchered specimens in three villages near Lusikisiki, in Ingquza Hill Local Municipality, on 10 August 2023.
• GroundUp (29 July 2024) reports growers at Dikidikini, in the valleys of Eastern Mpondoland, and says cannabis has been grown there for over 100 years.
• The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2018, para. 68) names "the Pondoland region" as the place of the aerial spraying of cannabis.
• One seed lot names a place inside the area: Lusikisiki Poison of the Vibes Collective strain guide, placed at Lusikisiki.
• The status is Active: the 2023 vouchers and the 2024 report describe cultivation since 2000. The spraying and its end do not change the status, since no source says that growing ended.

Extent and border

• No source read for this page draws a boundary round the growing area. The sources name Eastern Pondoland, the Lusikisiki area, three unnamed villages in Ingquza Hill Local Municipality, Port St Johns, and Dikidikini on the Mzintlava River.
• The map border is approximate. It is drawn on two present-day local municipalities of the OR Tambo district, Ingquza Hill and Port St Johns, which together cover about 3,750 km²; the infobox area is rounded down from the border. Ingquza Hill holds Lusikisiki and Flagstaff; Port St Johns holds the town at the mouth of the Mzimvubu.
• Lusikisiki, Port St Johns, the Mkhambathi Nature Reserve and the lower course of the Mzintlava lie inside the border. Bizana, Coffee Bay and Mthatha lie outside it.
• Dikidikini could not be found in OpenStreetMap or a gazetteer, so its exact place is not known. GroundUp puts it on the Mzintlava in Eastern Mpondoland; the river's lower course runs through Port St Johns municipality.
• The border does not match the sources exactly. Mbizana municipality, to the north-east, is left out, since no source read for this page places cannabis growing there; it remains inside the Wild Coast region.
• The rainfall in the infobox (800–1,000 mm a year, in summer) is the figure Dumani and colleagues give for the whole OR Tambo district, citing other studies. No source read gives elevations for the area, so the elevation fields are left empty.

Where the sources disagree

• Planted or wild. Kepe (p. 609) says that almost all the cannabis in the area is planted, not occurring naturally. Dumani and colleagues describe their plants as growing naturally in the valley forest, and cite Kepe for cannabis growing "in the wild" in Eastern Pondoland, which the 2003 paper does not say. The article gives each source's own words.
• When the spraying ended. GroundUp (2024) says the helicopter spraying stopped in 2016. The UN committee's concluding observations, adopted in October 2018, express concern at the spraying in the Pondoland region and recommend that it be suspended. The article gives both and does not reconcile them.
• Where the vouchers are housed. The abstract of Dumani et al. says the sheets were deposited at the Selmar Schonland Herbarium for identification; the text says they were then deposited and housed at the Döhne Agricultural Development Institute's herbarium. The article follows the text.

Sources

• Kepe (2003) was read in full. Its prices for growers (R40 and R16 a kilogram) and dealers (R1,000) are taken from Smith (1995) and Schutze (1998), and the article says so. The hemp pilot project is reported from Wynn (1998).
• Paterson (2009) was read in its sections on Pondoland and the former Transkei. The share of 2–3 per cent of households is quoted there from a doctoral thesis by Hajdu (Linköping University), which was not read directly. The account of growers walking to sell near Lusikisiki comes from a pseudonymous trader interviewed for the thesis.
• Dumani et al. (2024) was read in full. The local names, grades and "Transkei Gold" come from the authors' informal conversations with villagers. The study identified the plants by morphology only; it reports no chemical or genetic work.
• GroundUp (Nowicki 2024) was read in full. The THC figures (2.5–8 per cent against 20–28) and the three causes of the price fall are Tijmen Grooten's, reported by GroundUp; Grooten's report was not read directly.
• The UN committee (2018) was read in the official PDF, paras. 68–69.

Herbarium sheets inside the border

• Two herbarium sheets were collected at Port St Johns: Hadebe 105 (2019), on a mountain slope above the Bulolo River, and Schuhardt DS02383 (2002), on a coastal dune by the Mzimvubu. Neither label records cultivation, so neither is placed in this growing area; both keep their country, province and locality.

Sources not used

• Dumani et al. (2025, Horticulturae) grew Lusikisiki material in a greenhouse at Stutterheim, outside the area; it says nothing about growing in Mpondoland and is not used.
• Kepe's summary of du Toit on the use of cannabis by warriors and diviners in southern Africa is secondary and not specific to Mpondoland; it is not used.