Morocco has successfully completed its first legal cannabis export since making the move to legalise cannabis for medical, pharmaceutical and industrial uses in 2021.
This is a landmark development for the country amid its ongoing efforts to transition its thriving illicit cannabis cultivation industry into a legitimate export market and capitalise on its already dominant position in exporting to Europe.
It comes amid a torrent of applications from farmers, who until recently had remained largely skeptical of the opportunities presented by the legal market, seeing the legally licenced cultivation area in the country increase tenfold year on year.
As investors and businesses look to capitalise on the burgeoning opportunity, the National Agency for the Regulation of Cannabis-Related Activities (ANRAC) is now actively searching for export opportunities, having attended Cannabis Europa last month and reportedly visiting the Netherlands, Portugal and the Czech Republic recently.
First exports
In the second quarter of 2024, Morocco exported 100kg of cannabis resin with a THC content of less than 1% to Switzerland, selling its produce for between €1400 and €1800 per kilogram, Le Monde reported.
This followed an announcement from ANRAC in April, suggesting that an individual operator and a cooperative had exported 65.5kg of cannabis products to Switzerland (55.5 kg of CBD resin with a THC content of less than 1% and 10 kg of cannabis flowers with a THC content of less than 0.3%), as of April 23, 2024.
While this will come as positive news for farmers, some 400,000 of which are thought to rely on the cannabis industry (both illicit and legal) as their primary source of income, it represents just a drop in the ocean of cannabis being produced in the country.
In March this year, ANRAC reported that the country’s first medical cannabis harvest in 2023 produced 294 metric tonnes (294,000kg).
With only a fraction of these staggering amounts being exported, it’s currently unclear where the remaining produce ends up, whether it is used by the rapidly increasing number of local businesses, or whether some may have found its way back into the illicit market.
Business of Cannabis has contacted ANRAC for clarification on these statistics, but has received no response at the time of writing.
These figures also pale in comparison to the estimated size of the country’s illicit cannabis production market.
According to the European Union Drugs Agency and Europol’s recent indepth analysis of the illicit European cannabis market, most of the cannabis resin available in Europe comes from Morocco and enters the region via Spain, which seized 672.5 metric tonnes of cannabis resin in 2021 (over 82 % of the European total).
This is despite a significant decline in resin production seen in recent years, with the cultivated area decreasing from around 47,000 hectares (2010-2018) to 21,000 hectares in 2019, a 55% reduction.
As such, resin production is thought to have dropped from between 700-760 metric tonnes between 2010 and 2017 to 424 metric tonnes in 2018, climbing back to 596 tonnes in 2019, but the report suggests these figures could still be an underestimation of the real scale of the industry.
Change is happening
However, it appears these figure may be starting to shift. In May 2023, two years after cannabis was legalised for export, farmers in the region remained cautious about transitioning to the legal market, particularly in the remote mountainous regions where the majority of production takes place.
One farmer cited fears that ‘the benefits will go to the state… and that we will be left behind’. Others said they were ‘in the dark’ about what benefits the legal market would bring them over the illicit market, and which seeds, prices and processes they’d need to work with to be accepted.
According to figures from ANRAC, this transition is now gathering serious momentum as the benefits, which would see farmers earn four or five times as much for their crops, became more apparent.
As of April 23, 2024, ANRAC reports that it has issued some 2900 authorisations, a significantly increase on the 609 in 2023. This was reflected in the overall cultivation area which now stands at 2552 hectares, compared to just 286 in 2023.
Alongside thousands (2637) of farmers, a further 168 authorisations were granted to 61 operators, including a pharmaceutical company, 16 cooperatives, 37 companies and seven individuals.
The regulator is also promoting the use of local ‘beldiya’ seeds over imported ones due to their hardy nature and disappointing first crop, and is reportedly working with Morocco’s National Institute of Agronomic Research to certify and distribute these local seeds to farmers by 2025.
Around 760 hectares of the cannabis grown by April 2024 was done using this seed, seeing 42 cannabis products manufactured for legal production and submitted for registration to the Medicines and Pharmacy Directorate (DMP).
These included 11 cosmetic and personal hygiene products and 31 food supplement products, with seven registration certificates now understood to have been issued by the DMP.
Meanwhile, nearly 200 operators are understood to have entered the cannabis market since legalisation in 2021, with the Moroccan Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry and Innovation (FMIIP) suggesting the market could be worth around €400 to €600 million within four years.
As the market seeks to captialise on the international opportunity, some 54 permits were issued last year, with a further 39 being granted since.
With an imbalance remaining between supply and demand, the Moroccan Coalition for Medical and Industrial Use of Cannabis alongside many farmers are calling on the government to consider launching a domestic adult-use market.
This coalition, established last June, is set to host a series of debates and seminars with parliamentarians to lobby for the establishment of an adult-use market.
