IT is a piquant irony that in the week that the writing finally went up on the wall for the gold-mining industry, an influential agricultural think-tank began investigating the viability of hemp production in South Africa.
Hemp is better known colloquially as dagga, and the mere idea that it could supplant gold as our chief export in the 21st century might be dismissed as the result of inhaling too much of the weed.
But cannabis is more than just a commodity to be smoked. It is a true miracle plant. It can be used to make paper and clothing such as denim jeans and treat asthma, multiple sclerosis and other diseases.
The development of the dagga or hemp industry would empower tens of thousands of women in the rural areas, who are the primary cultivators of the crop.
It is eco-friendly – unlike the plantations of the timber industry – and would provide thousands of jobs to young people.
And what will be lost when the last mine shaft closes?
Migrant labour, the destruction of African family life that the prosperity of the Chamber of Mines was built on, would end. There would be no more deaths in hot, filthy pits under the ground in order to produce a yellow metal that no one can eat and only rich people can wear.
And what did those men who built the gold mines and Johannesburg get for it?
Their rural hinterlands are poorer than they were a century ago. The villages of Transkei, Lesotho, Malawi and southern Mozambique were able to sustain themselves not merely from remittances from the gold mines but from the cultivation of dagga by the women who were left behind.
Gold epitomises cheap labour, capitalism and imperialism. Names that are associated with it are Rhodes and Oppenheimer.
Dagga brings to mind a far gentler world view. Its production would Africanise our economy and not just because of what it means for black empowerment.
When Van Riebeeck landed at Table Bay, bringing with him symbols of Western civilisation such as muskets and torture stocks, he found people who had been smoking dagga for centuries. Instead of trading their cattle for worthless beads and hunting them like vermin, he should have sat down on the beach and shared a pipe.