The Sunday Mail
Tafadzwa Kadani
As cotton prices continue to decline on the international market, the local industry has been hit hard.
Travelling back to their homes in Gokwe, once upon a time, cotton farmers would smile as buses would be loaded with a myriad of goods which included wheel barrows and ox-drawn ploughs, after a successful selling season.
All that is gone as the prices of cotton continue declining, with the cost of production going up, resulting in the number of farmers and hectarage dwindling.
Economic challenges in the country have not helped improve the situation. As if this is not bad enough, the El Nino-induced drought has had a detrimental effect on farming in general in Zimbabwe and the whole of Southern Africa.
Against this background, could there be any future for the cotton industry and farmers in Zimbabwe?
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) president, Mr Wonder Chabikwa, expressed optimism saying farmers should not lose hope as there was a future for the cotton industry in Zimbabwe.
“There is a future for the cotton industry because demand for raw materials used in stock feed production, edible oil and lint for clothes is there. All of these raw materials are derived from cotton,” said Mr Chabikwa.
The international market is currently being dominated by countries that produce the crop in very large quantities such as China and India. The solution, possibly, lies in the country’s ability to create it’s own markets that will then encourage the growth of the cotton industry.
Zimbabwe has probably the most ideal conditions for cotton growing and equally experienced farmers. The missing link is that the crop is not as viable as it used to be.
At the moment, Zimbabwe is exporting almost 98 percent of raw cotton that has not gone through any value addition processes which leaves farmers and ginners at the receiving end.
Only about 2 percent is used in oil and stock feed production.
In his 2016 national budget statement, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said farmers would get free inputs for the next three seasons to increase production and harvests, a move which was welcomed by the acting managing director of the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe, Engineer Tapfumanei Christopher Murove.
“Government coming in and giving farmers free inputs will ensure that farmers will get more from their produce because it means less production costs,” said Mr Murove.
He added that the way forward for cotton farmers in particular and the industry in general is to have more subsidies and value addition if any real value from the crop is to be realised.
The Zim-Asset blueprint clearly enunciates value addition but surprisingly the cotton industry seems to be oblivious to such calls. If the cotton industry is to realise fresh growth in terms of hectarage and new farmer registrations, farmers have to know that they stand to gain a lot from investing in cotton.
Said Mr Murove: “It is high time as a nation, as ginners and for any related stakeholder that we started considering value addition both for lint and the seed. We need to assist those communities that grow cotton to spin lint at a low scale and consequently this will encourage industry to be localised in those communities thus creating employment.”
At the moment Zimbabwe is a net importer but largely relies on exports and some of the goods that are imported can be produced locally such as stock-feed and oil.
According to experts, since 2014 the total yield of the crop has been significantly dropping and this year it is estimated that it will be less than 100 000 tonnes.
This year’s harvest has been affected by the “milibug” pest, which wreaked havoc and has been every farmer’s nightmare as no pesticide has been successful in dealing with it.
Mr Chabikwa weighed in on the issue and said the Cotton Research Board needed to come up with a seed variety that was resistant to such pests.
The major issue that has affected cotton farming is the issue of funding and in as much as the Government has come in with free inputs more players are need from the private sector so as to resuscitate the industry.
“Soon Government help will come to an end and the industry will go back to where it was. Private players and finance institutions need to chip in also to fund farmers and ginners,” said Mr Murove.
