The Sunday Mail
Pious Manamike
Zimbabwe’s cotton industry is on the recovery path and this is key, especially to areas where other crops don’t perform well.
This promotes food security as communities with cotton can sell it and secure food. Alternatively, if communities are multi-cropped, they can sell cotton and don’t have to sell maize whenever the need for cash arises.
In the past, farmers faced viability problems occasioned by high input costs and an unattractive producer price.
Production was expensive because most ginners used to put mark-ups on inputs given on credit. In 2015, for example, the producer price of around USc30 per kg was just too low.
So, production became difficult in the face of a low producer price and risk-averse ginners who were giving a token amount of inputs insufficient to guarantee good yields.
A farmer would go on to get a yield of 400kg per hectare, and the money from that yield would, unfortunately, go towards offsetting inputs credit. It was, indeed, a zero-sum game for the farmer.
Now, Government has moved to address that problem. On the cost side, authorities stepped in with free inputs that are delivered to the farmer’s homestead at no cost.
Inputs are also being supplied to farmers ahead of scheduled times.
In 2016, seed and basal fertilisers were distributed before the rains, and this year, inputs have already been moved to depots in readiness for distribution to farmers.
Next season, we want to put at least 400 000 hectares of land under cotton. So we are distributing inputs that can cover that same land size. The inputs package being provided by Government is ideal.
A farmer gets 20kg of seed, two 50kg bags of basal fertiliser, 50kg of ammonium nitrate and an assortment of chemicals.
And this is for one hectare, which should translate to a good yield of at least 800kg of cotton if the weather permits.
So, the two problems that previously threatened the industry – high input costs and an unattractive producer price – have been addressed.
The USc47 per kg that Government announced ensures the farmer gets US$106 per bale before deductions. That is a fortune-changing intervention. These are minimum prices for grade D and C cotton I am talking about here.
If farmers use inputs effectively under conducive weather conditions, it is possible to attain grade A and B cotton at a minimum 800kg.
The Cotton Company of Zimbabwe is receiving mostly grade C cotton, and this is due to crop damage caused by excessive rainfall.
For A grade, farmers will get USc55; B grade USc50; while C and D grades are lumped on USc47. Once Cottco finished buying by end of August, data will be compiled and the company will pay adjustments to those who had higher grades as USc47 is the uniform price for now.
The cotton industry’s resurgence has brought quite a number of benefits. Cottco has employed many people and is running all its six ginneries. It has also increased buying points from last year’s 106 to 433.
All that speaks of employment across communities. Further, there are upstream value-chain benefits. Some oil expressers had shut down as they could not get foreign currency to import raw materials. However, such expressers are now using cotton seed from the local market to produce cooking oil.
Spinners who used to import lint due to low production are now getting lint domestically; spin waves are up and running.
Excess lint will be exported, but the domestic market is the priority. It is clear cotton-farming communities are happy with progress and the several business spin-offs derived thereof.
Shops that had closed have been reopened.
Transporters are back in business. Parents are now clearing school fees arrears while shop owners are settling their dues with local authorities.
Mr Pious Manamike is the Cottco Acting MD. He was speaking to The Sunday Mail’s Ishemunyoro Chingwere in Harare on July 27, 2017
