The sun sets over the MG Health Ltd. growing facility in Lesotho.
Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg
A Tiny African Kingdom Wants to Export Its Cannabis to the World
Marijuana has been cultivated in Lesotho for centuries. Now it’s a critical piece of the government’s agricultural strategy.
Kekeletso Lekaota spends her work days nurturing rows of cannabis plants for harvest. Pruning a few yellowed leaves from stems with thick, flowering heads, she says the job requires a soft touch and delicate hands.
It’s a crop Lekaota had no experience with 18 months ago, when she saw an advertisement for a grower in her local newspaper. Now, the 27-year-old trains others how to cultivate the plants for MG Health Ltd., a supplier of pharmaceutical-grade cannabis products, at a farm and oil extraction facility in Lesotho, the tiny, mountainous kingdom bordered on all sides by South Africa.