The Eastern Cape’s minister of agriculture, Max Mamase, recently remarked that he expects farmers in the province to be granted a special license by year’s end that would allow them to grow hemp commercially.

South Africa plans to grow hemp commercially to help impoverished rural people even though the plant is illegal, a provincial agriculture minister said Wednesday.

When he’s not an international peace mediator, former South African president Nelson Mandela is extending the olive branch back home in a revolutionary farming project designed to boost rural income opportunities and create jobs.

The good times have ceased to roll for tobacco, Malawi’s chief foreign exchange earner. Faced by a growing anti-smoking lobby, growers are finding it increasingly difficult to make profits because of rocketing costs and dwindling auction floor prices.

Malawi’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture wants to see hemp replace tobacco as the country’s main export crop. Joe Manduwa, himself a commercial farmer, raised the issue in Parliament this week. He said hemp was a flexible crop used for industrial textiles, paper, foods and cosmetics, and did not require pesticides or herbicides.