Agricultural innovations in Morocco’s cannabis industry

Cannabis cultivation in the world: heritages, trends and challenges

“…4 Pretty much everything about the cannabis plant leads to controversial debates, including its taxonomic classification. Considering the large knowledge deficit on cannabis cultivation in the world, how the name cannabis is used instinctively to refer to very different varieties/strains with extremely variable potencies 1 and yields, how deeply the cannabis industry has changed in the past years (increased importance of highyielding varieties/strains, development of modern production techniques) (Chouvy and Afsahi, 2014;Clarke and Merlin, 2016;Chouvy and Macfarlane, 2018), and how it is being affected by legislative debates and changes (decriminalisation and legalisation), it is important to acknowledge that simply speaking of "cannabis" to refer indistinctively to a low-potency landrace or a high-potency and high-yield modern hybrid, or referring to the traditional distinction between Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica is often vague, unscientific, and confusing. Also, very few authors, outside of cannabis aficionados and experts, fully understand the complexity of cannabis diversity and distinguish clearly between landraces, heirlooms, hybrids (not genetically modified organisms as can be sometimes inaccurately reported), varieties, strains, all-female seeds, sinsemilla, etc.…”

“…In the end, "cloning radically changed Cannabis agriculture… by making sinsemilla growing possible and profitable for hobbyists", virtually everywhere in the world (Clarke and Merlin, 2016, p. 309, 313). 15 The availability of seedless marihuana increased again after 1999, when selective breeding succeeded (in The Netherlands) producing "all-female" cannabis seeds that generate 95 %+ female plants and that made the production of seedless cannabis easier when the crops were cultivated out of the reach from airborne male pollen (especially indoors) (Chouvy and Macfarlane, 2018). Cannabis breeders, especially in the United States, The Netherlands, and Spain, have also created auto-flowering strains that flower independently of light cycles and temperature changes and allow for worry-free bountiful harvest (Clarke and Merlin, 2016, p. 317).…”

“…Transcontinental trafficking of marihuana has therefore Cannabis cultivation in the world: heritages, trends and challenges EchoGéo, 48 | 2019 largely been replaced by intraregional trade and import substitution schemes (Decorte et al, 2011;Chouvy, 2016a). 17 The other most common drug cannabis by-product is hashish (from the Arabic for grass) or cannabis resin: a more or less pliable paste-like substance (depending on both preparation and ambient temperature) obtained by compressing the resin glands, or trichomes, of the female cannabis plant (Clarke, 1998, p. 372-373, 370;Chouvy and Macfarlane, 2018). It can be produced through two different processes, depending on techniques employed in various production areas.…”

“…Also, more modern extraction processes have been devised to produce high-quality and highly pure hashish by retrieving cannabis trichomes in highly efficient mechanical processes (using for example the Pollinator and the Ice-O-Lator invented in the mid-1990s by Mila Jansen in The Netherlands: Jansen 2018). 20 In Morocco for example, where traditional production of sieved hashish remains largely prevalent, modern production techniques are quickly developing, giving rise to very high yields of high-quality sieved hashish and various modern "cannabis extracts" of higher purity, quality and potency (Chouvy and Macfarlane, 2018). At approximately 70 kilograms per hectare, the potential yield of such a high-quality hashish (produced from Cannabis strain Clementine Kush in this case) is significant, compared to the gross estimate of about 15 kilograms per hectare of lower-quality hashish produced on average from kif (the Moroccan landrace) and by way of threshing and sieving (Chouvy and Macfarlane, 2018).…”

Illegal cannabis cultivation in the world, and as a subject in academic research

“…(Clarke, 1998). 8 If academic research in cannabis producing countries in the Global South has most often been limited in time, scope, and depth, there has been some respite over the last decade with the field-based research of Kepe (2003) on South Africa, Afsahi, Chouvy, and Macfarlane in Morocco (Chouvy 2008;Chouvy and Afsahi 2014;Chouvy 2016;Chouvy and Macfarlane 2018), Bloomer (2009) in Lesotho, Botoeva (2014) in Kyrgyzstan, and Laudati (2016) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Still, as a whole, primary research on illegal cannabis cultivation in the Global South remains extremely scarce and very little is known about who produces what in Afghanistan, Albania, India, Lebanon, or Mexico.…”