Moroccan Farmers Push to Revive Traditional Cannabis Strain Amid Legalization

"We must not make the wrong choice. Beldiya will have to be rehabilitated if we want to place man and his land at the center of the project," declared Abdellatif Adebibe, a 70-year-old farmer and president of the Association for the Development of Central Rif, from his home in Ketama, at an altitude of 1,700 meters, located on Mount Tidirhine, the highest peak of the Rif mountain range, in northern Morocco, to the newspaper Le Monde.

According to the farmer’s explanations, this local cannabis is an indigenous plant, cultivated for centuries. "Our ancestors crushed the seeds to make oil that healed skin diseases. They made fabric, ropes, baskets... Some smoked the dried flower mixed with tobacco in sebsi [pipes]," he added.

For years, beldiya has been supplanted by imported hybrid varieties such as "gauriya" (Western) or "rumiya" (the foreigner), with a much higher THC (the main psychoactive molecule) content and higher yields, but criticized for their ecological impact, while it is less potent in THC and less water-intensive. Its rehabilitation should therefore benefit Moroccan farmers.