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last week’s price negotiations with the ginners ended in a stalemate.
“Farmers from the country’s different cotton growing districts are in agreement that they either withhold their cotton until a price that makes up for last year’s adjustment payments was agreed on or they declare the cotton ‘free’,” Zimbabwe Farmers Union national chairman of the Cotton Producers Association Mr Rodgers Nyoni said yesterday.
“This means they will not sell it to the contractors as is the norm but to buyers of their choice.
“About 99 percent of cotton produced in Zimbabwe is grown under contract and incidentally ginners form the bulk of the contractors who buy it.”
The cotton producers’ associations, said Mr Nyoni, decided to act that way to make up for the ginners’ failure to adjust prices even after re-grading the cotton over the past two seasons.
“The associations are accusing the ginners of breaching their contractual terms through availing inadequate inputs and providing the inputs late,” he said.
“The ginners are also failing to declare the grades scored by their cotton after re-grading, not giving price adjustments to farmers and not declaring to the Agricultural Marketing Authority the business they would have transacted.”
Mr Nyoni said that the different cotton producers associations had conducted meetings in Gokwe South, Gokwe North, Mt Darwin, Hurungwe and Checheche.
It was resolved that the growers should get alternative buyers for their product to make up for the prejudice they suffered at the hands of the ginners. Mr Nyoni said farmers were very angry about the matter and were even contemplating requesting ginners to get the entire cotton crop and pay them for their labour in the production process.
ZFU executive director Mr Paul Zakariya said farmers needed fair deals and ginners should respect the terms they would have agreed with the farmers.
Cotton Ginners Association director general Mr Godfrey Buka recently indicated that the uptake of lint was slow because of the global lint price crash.
Mr Buka hinted that ginners were stuck with the lint as there were no takers after buyers adopted a ‘wait and see’ attitude in expectation of further price falls that would eventually force ginners to dispose of the lint at give-away prices to escape further losses. Farmers this season planted more than 450 000 hectares of cotton with funding coming from the ginners.
Online Reporter