The Aranguez Unit­ed Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion says it wel­comes the state­ment made to­day in the Par­lia­ment by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al Rawi which sig­nalled not on­ly the dis­crim­i­na­tion of cannabis but al­so the fa­cil­i­ta­tion of cul­ti­va­tion and mon­etis­ing of the herb, a state­ment by the farm­ers said.

Since the an­nounce­ment, many mem­bers have com­mu­ni­cat­ed their in­ter­est in mak­ing an im­me­di­ate tran­si­tion to this cash crop that has glob­al de­mand for med­i­c­i­nal and recre­ation­al use.

Farm­ers who have been suf­fer­ing eco­nom­i­cal­ly see this as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to fi­nal­ly make agri­cul­ture prof­itable.

The AU­FA says it hopes that the gov­ern­ment does not cut and paste leg­is­la­tion from oth­er Caribbean ju­ris­dic­tions which have not re­sult­ed in the in­dus­try tak­ing off the ground.

"For ex­am­ple, in Ja­maica which de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of cannabis has re­sult­ed in a free­ing up of the courts, the con­cur­rent cul­ti­va­tion leg­isla­tive re­quires such ex­ces­sive de­mands that not a sin­gle li­cence has been grant­ed or gan­ja farm op­er­a­tionalised," the state­ment said.

It added that ad­di­tion­al­ly, the leg­is­la­tion should not be so cum­ber­some in it's re­quire­ments that on­ly the wealthy could af­ford to es­tab­lish a farm.

"It is hoped that the gov­ern­ment in for­mu­lat­ing it's pol­i­cy re­gard­ing cannabis in­clude some de­gree of mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty. To this end the AU­FA in­vites the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to meet with us at his ear­li­est con­ve­nience." the state­ment said.