Legalising cannabis
Jiji’s big acquisition, In Uganda, Geoffrey Yoga is converting farming wastes into green charcoal
Hello there,
Welcome to the second half of the year! We’ll be away for the next two weeks. See you on the 24th.
Legalising cannabis
In 2017, Lesotho became the first nation to legalize cannabis on the continent, followed last month by Morocco.
Before the decision by Moroccan lawmakers to authorize the “medical, cosmetic, and industrial” use of cannabis, as well as providing a regulatory framework, the country was already the world’s top exporter.
Morocco’s thriving illegal Cannabis industry sent an estimated $13 billion worth of pot to Europe annually, and employed close to 1 million people. Morocco is likely to drive up Africa’s legal cannabis market projections as more transactions are mainstreamed and wake up other sleeping African giants such as Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Nigeria.
The pushbacks:
In Kenya, major efforts to push for some form of legalization have been met with resistance centered on religion, negative public perception.
Uganda’s first lady, Janet Museveni, and a section of former and current cabinet ministers, for example, have opposed attempts at legalizing the product, calling it “satanic” and ruinous to the “future of our children” A report indicates that the country has more than 2.6 million users.
At least 10 countries in Africa are enacting some form of legal framework for the product, while many others are pondering a move in a similar direction.
Projections:
Africa’s legal marijuana industry could be worth as much as $7.1 billion by 2023 according to Prohibition Partners, a research and consulting firm specializing in the legal cannabis industry. This projection focused on the legal and regulated cannabis markets in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Nigeria, Morocco, Malawi, Ghana, eSwatini, and Zambia.
In Uganda, more than 90 companies, both local and foreign, have applied to the government for licenses to allow them to grow marijuana on a commercial scale.
Dig Deeper: Africa's cannabis industry is set to boom due to legalization — Quartz Africa
Sustainability is a big deal
In 2015, Geoffrey Okoth Yoga left his career as a quantity surveyor in Kampala to return to his home district of Tororo in eastern Uganda.
Some 90% of Uganda’s energy comes from biomass, and only 1% comes from electricity. This leads to huge deforestation and destruction of the natural environment.”
Yoga saw this as an opportunity to create a profitable business. “There are around 850,000 urban households in Uganda’s cities, and the average household uses more than 1 tonne of charcoal per year. That’s 850,000 tonnes a year of charcoal. And this doesn’t even begin counting the rural population or the needs of businesses and schools.”
“Traditional methods of making wood charcoal are very inefficient – you end up with only 10-15% of the original mass in the form of charcoal. We developed small kilns (furnaces) using steel drums, which give us around 40% efficiency, resulting in a much more carbon-dense and longer burning form of fuel.
Using his high school chemistry knowledge and scientific mindset, Yoga set about experimenting with different techniques and raw materials.
Green Charcoal retails at 800 shillings ($0.23) per kilo, versus around 1,000 shillings ($0.28) for the traditional product, which is far less carbon-dense
When we started we were producing about 250kg of charcoal a day, using very manual methods.
Currently, Green Charcoal Uganda works with around 300 smallholder farmers across the country – each of whom they train and provides with simple carbonising equipment. These ‘partners’ supply the company with char, which is then mixed with a binder, pressed and dried using a solar dryer. By outsourcing the carbonisation itself to hundreds of partners, Green Charcoal has been able to increase its production to between 3,000 and 5,000 kg of charcoal every day in just a few years.
Dig Deeper: Uganda: A profitable business from converting farming waste into green charcoal
Jiji’s big acquisition
Jiji, Africa’s leading digital marketplace has acquired Cars45, Nigeria’s automotive trading platform for an undisclosed amount.
Why?
For Jiji, it has been looking at other business models aside from classifieds. It chose Cars45 because vehicle listing is the second most popular category on Jiji behind real estate. Jiji’s total listing is worth over $10 billion, with real estate and vehicles topping the list at $7 billion and $3 billion respectively.
Why this acquisition matters
Jiji: Over the years, Jiji has been plagued by trust and safety issues from users. The acquisition of Cars45 will help reduce this risk, as it offers a different car buying and selling experience via a transactional marketplace model.
Also, Jiji will leverage Cars45’s network of inspection centres where cars are inspected by more than 200 parameters. Unlike a classifieds marketplace where checks are inadequately carried out, transactional models employed by platforms like Cars45 ensure quality checks and detailed reports on a car’s condition with various databases.
Cars45: This acquisition will enable Cars45 to grow the vehicles category. It will merge its operations in its three African markets – Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, to increase efficiency. It will also give Jiji an upper hand in consolidating its position as the classifieds marketplace leader.
Read more: Jiji acquires Cars45 as it expands beyond its classifieds model
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