Strain Hunters first mission, back in 2008, had a special destination as target: Malawi.
Malawi is a very special African country: it is one of the poorest and has one of the highest child and infant mortality rates, but it's also one of the most hospitable and less war-thorn states of the whole continent. It is scarcely populated, and just in the recent years it's starting to open to tourism. There are no guns around, except for those of soldiers and police (a rare case in this part of Africa), and most people are extremely friendly. Lake Malawi is the main attraction of the country and the third largest lake in Africa. Malawi is also the second largest producer of cannabis on the African continent, after South Africa. Last year Malawi produced just short of 12500 tons of cannabis (source: United Nations), most of which destined for export to other African countries or Europe.
The government of Malawi has far larger problems to address (malaria, a very poor health system and schooling system) and growers usually are far ahead of the game. Most of the cannabis is cultivated in the central and northern part of the country, in valleys and on hills deep in the forest, far away from any town or major road. Sometimes the only way to get there is on foot, after a long, long walk. Trees and the rugged terrain camouflage the fields, and it's impossible to get around without the help of the locals. Crops are planted in November and December, and harvested between April and May. After harvest the crops are dried on the spot and transported on foot or by mule to the collection points where the smugglers (usually foreigners from other African countries) organize the export with cars, buses, trucks, and sometimes even helicopters and small airplanes.
Arjan, Simon and myself did a scouting trip of about 3 weeks in February of 2008, when we had the chance to make contact with growers and see the plants already growing in the fields. Then we went back in April for the filming, with the camera crew.
Growing cannabis is not a very lucrative business for the people of Malawi; it is just survival. The international smugglers make most of the profits, while the farmers from Malawi just get enough money to provide food and schooling for their families and extended families. Usually more than one family, sometimes an entire village, attends a large production field. And the profits are shared between all the people involved, paying for food, and bricks for houses and school fees for children. Travelling through Malawi it's easy to understand that cannabis is the only crop that can have a positive impact on the rural poor communities, the same communities that are not benefiting from government or international help programs. Cannabis is doing for the poor people of Malawi what the government is not doing: helping. After traveling around the producing areas, guided by solid local contacts, we figured that cannabis arrived in Malawi from different sources, during a period lasting for a few centuries, over 1500 years ago. The first seeds came with Congolese tribes moving south, and then with Arab merchants trading from Asia into Africa. Today all over Malawi there are very different phenotypes of the same sativa landrace that the world knows as Malawi Gold or Malawi Black. The names were given in the 1970s and came with the different ways of fermenting and transporting the weed. The buds that are fermented and wrapped in corn leaves for transport take a very dark, almost black in colour (hence the name Malawi Black), while the non-fermented buds are brownish, almost golden. Another reason for the name Malawi Gold is the fact that it's pretty much the only crop worth decent money to the local farmers.
Malawi growers usually plant vast fields starting from seeds and do not pull the males from their crops, so the weed they harvest is full of seeds as well. On one hand this allows them to have a good stock for the next season; on the other hand seeds are the heaviest part of the cannabis plant, so they guarantee better income (seedless weed has pretty much the same price as seeded weed on the local wholesale market for export). We were able to retrieve seeds from several different areas, representing one single landrace with several phenos, all of them well inbred for a long period of time in the same area. In Malawi, seeds are often planted in clusters of 30-40 seedlings in the same place, and then the strongest 2-3 plants of the group will overgrow the rest, which will be cleared. Most fields are very isolated and very far from other fields, so the different phenotypes keep inbreeding with themselves, uncontaminated and unaltered by other genetics.
Some growers are starting to realize that there is a fast-growing local demand that is directly linked to tourism. Some are starting to sell the products of their work to tourists coming to the resorts scattered on the lake's shores, in the southern part of the country. Because of the contact with the tourists, the growers also begin to realize that seedless weed can have a much higher value for smokers, and when they plant their next crop they try to identify and pull the male plants from the most part of their fields (some males will always be left on purpose, to pollinate for making seed-stock for the following season).
Malawi cannabis is tall, with the typical almost-pure-sativa look. The different phenotypes we encountered in our travels were ranging from very woody and earthy in flavour to fruity and sweet (pineapple and mango the most dominant smells on the fruity phenos). Some fruity phenos have a more branchy structure, while the more woody ones present a really tall and stretchy attitude, with little branching. Most fields I have seen were fertilized by burning old trees and scattering the ashes. Some fields had planting techniques borrowed from other cultures such as cassava and corn.
The Malawi Gold high is incredibly clear, intense, long lasting, and very complex. During most of the making of the documentary I was almost energized by the local weed, sometimes to the point of needing less food than normal.
The more fermented Malawi Black (also known as "the cob") has a very earthy, almost mouldy taste, and a much more stoned and body-like effect. At times it was perfect to balance the extreme high of the non-fermented batches. I used to smoke the fermented batches mostly in the evenings, when the day was over, to help me sleep. And the next morning I would have a breakfast joint of the high energizing batch to get me going. A very effective all-Malawi therapy.
Malawi is not only one of the most beautiful countries I visited in my life; it is also one of the most cannabis friendly. Weed is illegal, and penalties are actually quite harsh on the paper; but in practice the land is so vast, and the road checks so easy to bypass, that it is a smoker's paradise. For how long it will stay like this, depends on tourism development and politics. I can only hope it will not change too much or too fast.
We are now busy producing the original Malawi Gold after years of selection, and we will release it in regular form sometimes in 2012, together with other landraces from our travels.
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