Inside Uganda’s medical marijuana farm, factory

Nine years ago, Mr Ben David Itamar ventured in aquaculture around Lake Galilee where he farmed Coil fish. The then 27-year-old would spend more than 10 hours working on the fish farm under a mixed condition of contact with water and the scotching sun. He rarely travelled south to meet up with his family in Jerusalem.

“I was in the sun and did not treat myself properly including diet. I developed beauty marks on the skin and with pain, my body started to change,” Mr Itamar narrates.

Mr Itamar, now 36, works in Uganda’s medical cannabis (marijuana) farm and factory where he works in one of the Green Houses (enclosed gardens) at Hima in Kasese District.

He works closely with local labourers that he guides on how to take care of marijuana plants that are at a flowering stage. This is a stage towards harvest.

Mr Itamar told Daily Monitor that when the condition of his skin worsened, he sought medical attention back home in Jerusalem where he was told he suffered from skin cancer.

“I first refused pharmaceutical medicine because someone had told me I can be healed in a natural way,” he said.

He added: “I met Eladi one of the growers of the medical cannabis who gave me a special oil from the plant (marijuana). When I accepted, I became one of the first patients in Israel to be licensed for testing of the medical marijuana oil and it worked”.

Thereafter, Mr Itamar was recruited by Together Pharma, a private company that grows medical marijuana and process it into pharmaceutical substances in the Middle East.

It is Together Pharma that has partnered with Industrial Globus, Uganda to establish the medical marijuana facility in Kasese, where all products will be exported to Europe.

What is on the farm?
The farm, which is sitting on a 12.5-acre land, includes a state of the art greenhouse farm and a high-tech factory. It is located about 3kms from Hima Town.

On Sunday, this reporter was among the three journalists that were given the first guided tour of the facility ever since the European Union approved Uganda’s medical marijuana products in August.

While receiving the journalists, Mr Benjamin Cadet, a company director at Industrial Hemp, Uganda explained that the facility is highly guarded.

“This place is highly secured because many people think we are preparing to establish a drug hub here and we know that some may even want to break in to loot the cannabis for sale on the black market” Mr Cadet said.

On the site, there is a Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Colonel, whose particulars we cannot reveal. He commands security personnel, who are complimented by an Israeli CCTV camera and sensors technology. Alarm bells will ring once an unauthorised person extend closer to the fence. The reason intruders can be left to approach the factory without being stopped by security personnel in the control room is because the facility is surrounded by the community members most of them pastoralists.

Immediately after making it through the security checkpoint where also visitors and the more than 200 staff sanitise with disinfectants, phones and any other electronic gargets capable of taking pictures are confiscated.

“There is logic in restricting taking of pictures here. We are jealous of the competition in this business and there is fear that our technology which is from Israel can be exposed to competitors,” explained Mr Nir Sosinsky, the managing director of Together Pharma.

Green houses
To successfully grow marijuana, Industrial Globus Uganda, a joint venture with Together Pharma (the financiers) and Industrial Hemp Uganda, have set up six green houses.

Green House number six 6 is critical because it is used as the nursery bed for the plant. It is nearest to the main gate and for staff to enter for their daily chores, one must first have a bath and thereafter get dressed in uniform (pure white). Shoes are dipped into the disinfectants to avoid infecting the plant.

Workers in this Green House number 6 do not work in any other on the same day and do not touch the plants with bare hands. The technology here and in other Green Houses is sophisticated and it is used to irrigate the plants, control temperature and the light.

Green House number One is where currently marijuana plants are flourishing. The plants see nothing from the current heavy rain that has been destroying some farm because green houses are enclosed. Here, the plants are said to be in thousands.

In green houses, plants do not touch the ground but are rather in raised containers. The plants are rooted in coconut fibre that the directors say is being imported from Sir Lanka. This is an alternative for soil that is feared contaminated.

In these flowering greenhouses, the gardens are supplied with water through automated and computerised irrigation system.

At the moment, the flourishing plants are beginning to bear flowers which are the most important components for pharmaceutical purposes.
“The plants and their leaves are not what we use for pharmaceutical purposes. We use the flowers and they make good medicine for different diseases such as cancer and epilepsy. We harvest the flowers when they turn yellow,” Mr Sosinsky said.

The factory
The green houses and the factory combined, form an investment worth $12 million (about Shs43.7 billion). The factory, in final stages of construction, is fitted with modern equipment, which the proprietors say were imported from Israel and Italy.

During the tour, the National Drug Authority (NDA) was represented by Mr Amos Atumanya, a senior regulatory officer. He, however, did not address the press after the tour of factory that has more than 20 rooms that will serve different purposes.

The factory is separated into two sections: the processing room, which includes flower wetting and drying; and the pharmaceutical wing which will be for manufacturing and packaging medicine out of the marijuana.

Like in the green houses, no one is allowed to take a photo or film in the Pharmaceutical wing of the factory. The company opts to flying a drone and only release footage or photos of areas that are not of hi-tech leakage risks.

Mr Sosinsky explained that medical marijuana is taking to the stage of healing complicated diseases across Europe and the different countries only permit a product that is packaged for hospital use only.

“This is not a black market facility because we have been audited to ensure that what is produced here is medical cannabis. The product will be exported to the European countries,” he said.

He added: “The first commercial production of packaged products from this facility will be around March next year and our product will go straight to the market because the facility is built to European standards”.

Mr Cadet also said Industrial Globus Uganda is working with the relevant agencies of government to ensure that the law is properly followed while growing medical marijuana because it is different from that used by drug addicts.

“We are working with government to see that these products can also be used in Uganda because everyone knows how this country is struggling with many non-communicable diseases,” he said.

Employment
With the facility currently employing 200 people, the long term plan is to have at least a human resource force of 450. These will include pharmacists to process the medicine from marijuana, agronomists to cater for the plant and also casual labourers.
Officials revealed that to abide by local content requirements, 45 percent of the workers will be recruited from the Hima area, 25 per cent from the entire Kasese, 25 per cent will be from across the country depending on their competencies and 5 per cent will be experts from Europe.

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