Jamaica cannabis authority approves eleven additional licences harvest expected in four months

(MENAFN- Caribbean News Now) By Caribbean News Now contributor

KINGSTON, Jamaica – At the 2019/20 sectoral debate in the Jamaica House of Representatives on Tuesday, minister of industry, commerce, agriculture and fisheries, Audley Shaw, announced that the Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA) has approved 11 additional applications for licences in the medical cannabis industry. Meanwhile, farmers in Accompong, St Elizabeth, who are part of the government's cannabis cultivation pilot project are preparing to harvest medical cannabis within four months.

Shaw noted that the CLA received 627 applications leading up to March 31. Thirty-three licences have been issued to date, 178 applications are at the conditional approval stage, preparing to pass CLA's due diligence process and to receive their licences subsequently.

'CLA is contemplating amendments to the existing regulations, in keeping with the development of the local and global medical cannabis industry and will, in the near future, complete drafting instructions for regulations concerning import, export and transhipment, as we move to capitalize on the opening up of greater opportunities in the international space,' Shaw said.

At the Montpelier agricultural and industrial show in St James on Monday, minister without portfolio in the ministry of industry, commerce, agriculture and fisheries, William James Charles Hutchinson, informed participants that farmers in Accompong have already received their seedlings.

'They are about to move them [seeds] out of the greenhouse and into the open field. We have ten acres prepared for planting legal marijuana. We are hoping that we will be reaping within another three to four months,' Hutchinson said. "Government is looking to cultivate 50 acres of the plant for use as a raw material in a variety of commercial products, including oils and animal feed.'

'We are also going to move into other areas where we are going to ask the traditional ganja planters to get themselves into groups so we can come and provide the necessary information to grow cannabis legally,' Hutchinson said.

The CLA implemented Alternative Development Programme (ADP) and the cannabis programme in Accompong, St Elizabeth and Orange Hill, Westmoreland is all-encompassing to provide Jamaica's small-scale traditional farmers with the commercial opportunity and legal process to benefit from the lucrative cannabis industry.

The 1998 Action Plan, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, provides for the inclusion of such a programme through specifically designed rural development measures consistent with sustained national economic growth.

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