Government Moves to Protect Indigenous Cannabis Growers – Legal Framework Now Under Design

On 21 September 2026 the Department of Small Business Development issued a Request for Quotation calling on legal experts to help design a framework for the recognition, protection and regulated participation of indigenous cannabis growers in South Africa. The move, reported by Adams & Adams on 29 September, is the most concrete recent signal that government is finally treating the inclusion of traditional and rural growers as a serious policy task rather than a rhetorical commitment. 

This development sits directly on top of the earlier announcement that the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition is preparing a Cannabis Bill for introduction to Parliament by mid-2027, with the explicit goal of unlocking an informal market estimated at R36 billion a year while protecting indigenous knowledge.

Why This Matters Now

Private adult use, possession and cultivation have been constitutionally protected since the 2018 Prince judgment. The Cannabis for Private Purposes Act of 2024 largely codifies that private sphere. What has remained missing is any workable commercial pathway for the communities that maintained the plant through decades of prohibition — the rural and traditional growers of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and related corridors.

Without such a pathway, the informal market continues to dominate, large seizures keep occurring (including the mid-September Baobab Toll Plaza interception of nearly a tonne of suspected dagga), and the original custodians of landrace genetics remain exposed to enforcement while larger, better-capitalised players position themselves for future formal markets.

The new RFQ from Small Business Development is significant because it focuses specifically on “feasible, constitutionally aligned and implementable pathways” for recognising and integrating indigenous growers into the formal cannabis and hemp value chain. Legal experts will be expected to consider existing instruments such as the Protection, Promotion, Development and Management of Indigenous Knowledge Act 6 of 2019 and the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, alongside the forthcoming Cannabis Bill.

The Risk of Getting It Wrong

Commercialisation of cannabis and hemp is already attracting corporate interest. High-barrier licensing models designed for export-oriented medicinal producers or large industrial hemp operations can easily sideline smaller, traditional growers. Once genetic material is displaced by imported hybrid or commercial seed, and once market access is controlled by those who can afford compliance costs, the historical custodians risk becoming labour rather than owners of value.

Any framework that emerges must therefore do more than create a new licence category. It needs to:

•  Recognise existing seed-saving systems and landrace populations

•  Lower entry barriers for community-based and small-scale producers

•  Provide preferential or dedicated access mechanisms

•  Protect against genetic erosion and biopiracy

•  Align with the broader Cannabis Bill so that one set of rules does not undermine another

Linking the Threads

This process cannot be separated from the ongoing Prince litigation and mediation efforts, the incomplete regulations under the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act, the still-unresolved position of cannabis and hemp in foodstuffs, and the continued enforcement pressure on the informal trade. Inclusion of indigenous growers is not a side issue; it is central to whether South Africa’s cannabis reform will be remembered as a genuine expansion of rights and economic opportunity or as another round of exclusion dressed in new language.

The mid-2027 Cannabis Bill timeline and the current legal RFQ together create a window. How that window is used will determine whether rural and traditional growers finally gain a protected, practical seat at the table.

Linkable sources

•  Adams & Adams analysis (29 Sept 2026): https://www.adams.africa/intellectual-property/trade-marks/regulatory-law/getting-your-greenback-from-traditional-knowledge-to-commercial-cannabis/

•  Business Day reporting on the R36bn rural sector (25 Sept 2026)