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TRADITIONALLY, cotton planting stretches from October to November in Zimbabwe’s Lowveld areas while November to December is the ideal period for middle and Highveld areas.
Farmers who do dry planting usually begin on October 15 every year. This is the crop that customarily gets the send-off of the first rains of the season and is reputed for spawning bountiful yields. Sadly, this does not seem to be still happening on a large-scale in recent seasons with most farmers doing last minute planting or even drastically slashing the hectarage to avoid missing out on the optimal moments of the season.
Obviously, this is always attributed to a myriad of challenges some of which can easily be avoided with proper planning. There are also natural problems that are related to climate change for which people have not much say.
Of course some can easily counter some of the problems, for instance, using irrigation to tame drought but those who cannot access irrigation facilities have no way out.
The unfortunate scenario, however, is that those who cannot irrigate form the bulk of the producers of the white gold.
Now to the issue at hand, this tradition seems to have been slowly replaced by problem-riddled beginnings to every season.
Last season it was the issue of delayed inputs distribution after the Grain Marketing Board has taken over the process which initially was done by Cottco.
The transition did not happen smoothly with inputs distribution only taking place after the hand-over, take-over process was completed, albeit, way into the season.
The slow beginning also had a significant impact on the eventual yields although the El Nino-induced drought that later characterised the entire season ended up shouldering all the blame. It is a fact that good preparations for any season, whether bad or good always have some positive bearing — big or small on the final performance of a crop.
Last season, low yields were recorded in the region of 13,5 million kilogrammes of the white gold, a sharp drop from its predecessor’s 90 million kilogrammes.
It seems this disheartening streak is not done with the crop with allegations surfacing that Cottco has still not collected some of the seed cotton delivered to common buying points last season. Some common buying points in places like Chiredzi, Mutoko and Binga reportedly have uncollected bales that were unfortunate to be exposed to the recent showers that hit some parts of the country.
To make matters worse, there are reports that some farmers are still owed payments from the 2022 season, which in essence is a true recipe for discouraging production.
Farmers need to get payments once they produce and sell a crop to enable them to remain in business.
It is quite discouraging to observe that even our textile industry is struggling to hold its own yet the country exports raw lint every season without value adding it. This literally means that we are exporting jobs and foreign currency that we should be gaining if we had processed the lint into more valuable products before exporting it.On the brighter side of things, I hear that the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) has now registered five companies to contract farmers for the 2024/25 season and AMA clerks have also been deployed in cotton growing areas to oversee the registration of farmers, movement and distribution of inputs in a transparent manner.
This effectively means that preparations for the 2024/25 cotton season are officially underway. It now remains to be seen whether there were lessons stakeholders picked from Government’s move last year to relieve Cottco of the duty to preside over inputs distribution citing irregularities that were affecting the process.
AMA must walk the talk and expeditiously do the distribution process to allow farmers to at least get preparations underway and catch the critical moments of the season.
There are chances of a good season courtesy of the La Nina weather phenomenon that climate scientists say will characterise the season.
Of course La Nina weather is expected to bring with it above average rainfall, increasing the likelihood of extreme flooding in Zimbabwe and other regional neighbours.
This can damage crops and worsen the situation for the already vulnerable population.
La Nina typically brings extreme weather to the same regions most affected by El Niño, which caused massive crop failure across the country eroding people’s capacities to produce any crop effectively thereafter.
The projected La Niña weather is known to cause opposite conditions to those associated with El Niño with areas that are now experiencing drought most likely to face flooding while those that received excessive rainfall are likely to experience drought.
The effects of the El Niño weather of last season will continue to be felt over the coming months with estimates even indicating that it will take approximately two years for communities to recover, even if agricultural conditions improve later this year.
Banking on the possibility of the rewarding season, the country must diligently do all the necessary preparations to ensure the forthcoming cotton season is a huge success.
It is time the disparity between the production figures from the 2022/23 and 2023/24 seasons is reduced to tolerable levels.
In fact, this season in targeting 270 000ha and 270 million kilogrammes of the white gold.
These figures are all possible with the right preparations on the backdrop of transparent and professional behaviour by all parties involved — from farmers to the contractors.
Online Reporter