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Heads up: commercial hemp is legal now (and our climate might be a problem)
Quick one for anyone who still thinks hemp is stuck in limbo. The Plant Improvement Act came into force on 1 December 2025, and under it you can now grow, import and export commercial hemp under 2% THC, with a permit. Mayet & Associates has a plain-language rundown if you want the legal detail.
The numbers so far: roughly 1,400 hemp cultivation permits issued, next to about 83 SAHPRA medicinal licences. So hemp is actually moving, while high-THC cannabis stays locked behind a SAHPRA medicinal licence and nothing else.
Here's the part I found genuinely interesting. The dtic's new hemp plan raises the THC ceiling to 2%, and there's a known catch: our climate makes hemp spike. Plenty of sunshine and the right conditions can push a low-THC cultivar over its ceiling unpredictably. Medigrow covered it. A farmer plants a compliant cultivar, the sun does its thing, and the crop tests hot and fails compliance. That's a real risk for a smallholder sitting on a permit they can't afford to lose.
Anyone here actually grown hemp under the new permits, or looked into it? I'm curious how the THC-spike problem plays out in a Western Cape or KZN field versus on paper.