Online Reporter
Edgar Vhera, Specialist Writer, Agribusiness
THE Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) will soon announce dates for the start of the 2026 cotton marketing season, with farmers expecting good prices to incentivise them to grow the crop again next season.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers union (ZCFU) cotton commodity chairman, Mr Clemency Gondo, said the cotton validation was carried out and completed in about two weeks.
“We eagerly await a rewarding price from this year’s negotiations among all stakeholders, and marketing will start once prices have been announced,” he said.
Mr Gondo expressed concern over the non-payment of price differentials to most farmers, although the crop quality was good.
Cotton is currently purchased using a grade-based pricing model, where farmers often receive an initial payment based on the lowest grade (Grade D) price, with the intention of receiving top-up payments (price differentials) after the crop is officially graded.
“We are now about to get into this year’s marketing season with these farmers demoralised,” he added.
Cotton Producers and Marketers Association (CPMA) chairman, Mr Stewart Mubonderi, agreed that this year’s crop output and quality would be better than last year’s.
“This year’s crop will be better than last year’s and could have been much better had growers received adequate top-dressing fertiliser.
The quality could also have improved much better had farmers been given enough crop chemicals,” he said.
To show the influence of price on output growth, following the phenomenal world lint price increase in the 2010/2011 season, local cotton farmers were well rewarded with seed cotton prices of US$1 per kilogramme.
A total of 250 million kilogrammes of seed cotton were produced from 379,689 hectares. As a result of the lucrative US$1 price in the 2010/11 season, seed cotton output rose 40 percent to 351 million kilogrammes in the 2011/12 season — a combined 14 percent area increase and a 23 percent surge in yield.
The world lint price crashed in the 2011/12 season, causing local farmers to be paid US$0,40 per kg.
This price drop dampened farmer morale, resulting in a 59 percent drop in national output to 144 million kg in the 2012/13 season, following a 44 percent slump in area and a 27 percent decline in yield.
The price remained below US$0,50 per kg, except in 2018, with area and cotton production declining to 75,000 ha and 29 million kilogrammes in the 2015/16 season.
The Government’s intervention via the free Presidential Input Scheme (PIS) administered by Cottco drew farmers back into cotton production, with output rising to 144 million kg in the 2017/18 season — the highest since PIS — and a better price of US$0,53 was paid.
The 2020 and 2021 seed cotton marketing seasons saw farmers paid 100 percent in local currency; issues of currency devaluation seriously eroded farmer earnings, discouraging production.
In the 2022 marketing season, the Government classified cotton farmers as exporters and pegged the price at US$0,30 per kg plus ZW$32,50 per kg.
The 2023 cotton marketing season saw the Government increasing the farmers’ foreign currency retention to 85 percent from 75 percent the previous season, and production increased 61 percent to 90 million kg from 56 million kg in 2022.
Grade A seed cotton fetched US$0,46 per kg, with Grade B receiving US$0,43, Grade C getting US$0,41, and lastly, Grade D was paid US$0,40 in the 2023 marketing season.
Subsequently, farmers were paid a Grade A price of US$0,43 per kg, with Grade B at US$0,39, Grade C at US$0.36, while Grade D sold at US$0,32.
Last season, farmers were paid US$0,41 per kg for Grade A, with Grade B at US$0,37, Grade C at US$0,34, and Grade D fetching US$0.30.
Morale among farmers is low, as most of them have not been paid their grade-based price differentials since the announcement of the pricing model in 2023.
Research conducted by Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Institute (Zepari) executive director, Dr Gibson Chigumira, in 2017 titled “An analysis of cotton by-products survey in Zimbabwe,” identified low producer prices as the main factor affecting cotton production.
The survey revealed that most farmers (92.5 percent) identified low cotton producer prices as one of the main reasons why production of the crop had fallen in the country.
“Farmers indicated that the real income they earn from seed cotton had declined significantly over the years.
As an illustration, farmers recounted that they could buy a cow from one bale of cotton many years ago, but now they require several bales to afford a cow,” he said. Other factors affecting growth are high input costs, erratic rainfall, and a shortage of inputs.
