Ajillion’s mission: cannabis opportunities across the globe

Cannabis

Ajillion Corporation, based in Toronto, Canada are specialists in cannabis cultivation and processing and represent a rare alliance between North American and African teams whose skill sets complement each other perfectly. They are expertly led by a team that have a long history operating in Sub Saharan Africa and ensuring the local community thrives.

Ajillion’s mission is to support agriculture, financial services and increase GDP. They provide stakeholders with increased profits through best practices, social governance, and new opportunities and are deploying FinTech and AgriTech solutions in Canada, Europe Asia, Africa and soon London or South Africa.

Medical Cannabis Network spoke with Chief Executive Officer Ian McNeill to discuss the company’s African development plan. McNeill told us: “The strategy we have adopted is working with Environmental Social Governance (ESG) and Social Development Goals (SDG) in order to create an impact throughout Africa. I think that hemp and cannabis both have a long term effect, as the cost of production is extremely low, but I also think that Africa is going to be one of the largest growing economies in the world. There are 1.2 billion people today, with 50% of the population being 25 and under so there are lots of opportunities for jobs and commerce.

“Cannabis is a very significant topic with Africa being an ideal location for cultivating the crop but there is really only so much work that can be done. On the medical side of things, we see that there is a lot of opportunities. One thing that is really taking a lead is in-country cultivation and processing is something that we want to keep in-country. That will create other jobs and economic benefits and it can be anything from oil to industrial hemp.

“Cost of production in Africa is extremely low, and that allows for Africa to be able to compete with other markets. That is one of the things that is being seen in the marketplace right now as a lot of companies – specifically in the Canadian market – have tremendous amounts of money but there hasn’t been a large return on investment back to shareholders. We are very focused on being able to create a yield back to our partners. There is a need to create in-country partnerships when we go into markets, and at the moment we are in South Africa as well as Zimbabwe building very strong partnerships.”

Cost of production advantages

McNeill continued: “The cost of production in Africa is a lot lower than not only Canada but also the US, Europe, and various other markets. One of the benefits of operating from Africa is that it can become a gateway for supplying the European market, which will be two or three times the size of its North American equivalent.

“The drugs that come from cannabis are doing a lot of good in cancer research, but Africa is not going to have the retail pricing that we see in the North American market. Looking into the pharmaceutical side as well, a lot of the pharmaceuticals currently produced in China and India, are extremely low quality. There is also an opportunity to create new industries within Africa, and one of those is pharmaceuticals rather than needing to rely on China and India.

Supporting the South African community

Ajillion is working hard to support both the farming and general community in Africa to ensure that their presence improves both lives and the economy. McNeill continued: “One thing that people don’t realize is that there’s very little transportation in Africa, so transporting a crop for example, very often results in contamination with mold, with losses shown to be 40-6-% post-harvest; therefore, it is vital to have the ability to carry out processing close to the cultivation site.

The ability to move those crops is usually vital, for example in Europe and North America, it is possible to harvest a crop and transport it to processing quite easily – unfortunately in Africa, if you do that, that crop can become contaminated.

“Many people think that you can just produce biomass in Africa and then export it but that would be very challenging and is why in-country processing becomes crucial. There is much more to it than supporting the farming community, it is also to supporting in-country processing and value-added processing. Crop rotation is also important because if you’re going to undertake outdoor cultivation then you must bring those processes back to other crops, and then develop improved strategies for in-country processing.

“One of my first trips into Africa was in Ghana where we were talking to municipalities in the rainforest and they wanted to help support their local farmers with papayas. At that time if they just harvested them, they would rot so there needs to be a way to add shelf life. With cannabis and the need to export it in using isolate and distillate then shelf life has been added which increases the value and also creates higher value jobs within the country.

Read More at source: Health Europa

Image Source: Health Europa