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The regional association, which presently comprises four countries in Sadc, was recently formed to share information and address challenges facing farmers in the region.
At the moment cotton farmers in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Swaziland are represented in the regional association by their unions such as the Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) in the country.
In an interview, ZFU executive director Mr Paul Zakariya said there was need to improve productivity and the quality of cotton in the region’s cotton growing countries.
For this to happen, he said, aspects such as pricing models of the crop in each country were being looked into by the Southern African Regional Cotton Association.
“The association is working on models to use to determine the price of cotton so that farmers, ginners and all others stakeholders in the cotton industry have a win-win situation.
“The pricing models will look at principles that include production and ginners’ costs, and the world lint price,” he said.
Mr Zakariya said the cotton association had also been formed to create a platform through which farmers in the region would share information relating to cotton production.
“We need farmers here (Zimbabwe) and farmers for example in Malawi to share information on cotton production in their respective countries. Farmers need to know what is happening in the industry at regional level.
“In the past we noted that it was the preserve of the ginners to know what was happening in the region,” he said, adding that this was because it was the same ginners in Zimbabwe that you find in either Zambia or Malawi.
In the last few years, cotton production in the country has been on the decline due to a host of challenges farmers were facing.
Zimbabwe’s national cotton yield has plummeted from 3 000 kilogrammes per hectare in the past few years to 590kg at present.
derick.khumalo
Online Reporter