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The need to continue rebuilding primary industry and expanding secondary industry has come up in some statistics published recently on cotton and tobacco.
Cotton production is recovering, which is good news for farmers along with the smallholder farmers now able to access the Government inputs through a modified Pfumvudza programme adapted for this cash crop as Government continues to push programmes that bring prosperity to the large number of small-scale farming families.
But this surge in production needs to be backed by a surge in local processing. The latest statistics from ZimStat show that last year the vast bulk of the cotton lint produced was exported as lint. We agree that 55 million kg were sold for US$88 million, a useful sum, but then those who drive these reports did an extra sum.
They assumed just half of those 55 million kg were spun into yarn in Zimbabwe, woven into cloth, in Zimbabwe, and then that cloth was used to make shirts, a straight forward product when it comes to sizes and demand. The exports would have more than tripled, jumping from US$88 million to US$305 million.
And if the rest of the 55 million kg had been at least been processed into yarn, or better still cloth, then the exports would have jumped further.
We once did quite a lot better, selling just over half our cotton lint as cotton lint, and the rest went into Zimbabwean industry and was used internally to meet a lot of our clothing needs with decent surpluses going out of the country as thread, cloth and clothes. In fact we went further, importing some raw material to make blended fabrics, although still labelled “cotton rich” as well as pure cotton.
We had also established a reputation for manufacture of short runs of each size and design and were starting to specialise in these short runs, either the difficult sizes or the sort of fashion product where no one wants more than a few score of each size. One secret was the fairly-well educated workforce that allowed the quick switching between batches and designs.
For all sorts of reasons a lot of this industry collapsed, partly with the lower cotton crop, partly through the largest spinning and weaving concern almost collapsing, and partly as a side effect of sanctions where “Made in Zimbabwe” lost its cachet.
The effect on urban populations was as bad as the decrease in farm incomes. There used to be 20 000 or so workers in the textile industry. There are now 3 500. We lost some of those jobs, and we exported some of them when we pushed our lint exports rather than our exports of cotton products as the farmers did their bit.
Sometimes the ginners are partially at fault. We ran reports recently from one major surviving weaver complaining that he could not get enough lint to keep his machines running all year, since the extra lint he needed was neatly packed and exported to spinners in other countries. And it was not just his machines that were lying idle, it was his workforce and in most ways that is perhaps even more important.
Zimbabwe needs to push a lot harder in the cotton world. We can grow a quality crop.
It is a brilliant crop for many smallholder farmers, bringing in useful income but with the fairly modest plots family labour can just about cope with the picking, adding value since hand-picked cotton is better quality than machine picked.
The cotton seed can and is used as a feedstock for cooking oils, with the residue often going into stockfeed, so we get another benefit.
If we get ourselves organised we can then create a lot of jobs, and far more valuable exports, by processing the bulk of the lint in Zimbabwe, with a good proportion going all the way to finished quality clothing. At the same time we can clothe ourselves. A farming country like Zimbabwe should be able to feed and clothe itself.
This is possible. Some of our export customers for cotton lint operate in countries that have huge cotton harvests, but have an even bigger textile industry than their own farmers can drive. But we, if necessary, can invite some of these customers to build their factory here instead, and keep the new jobs here instead of there, and see the exports on our currency account.
Tobacco is in almost the same position. So far this season our tobacco farmers have earned almost exactly US$600 million, on a crop only four percent smaller than the previous year despite the erratic rainfall. This is good news for the farmers.
The merchants will add a few hundred million dollars for value to that just over 200 million kg as they process the leaf in various ways, getting the moisture content just right, making sure the grading is perfect so the customer orders can be made up precisely, often taking out the stalks, and then packing it properly and dispatching.
But we do not go much further in processing for the bulk of the crop. Our local cigarette companies use a tiny fraction to satisfy the local market, and an even tinier fraction to satisfy export markets. We produce hardly any pipe tobacco, although this used to be a useful boutique business with several smaller businesses involved, and at least one that was working with a South African business to create markets in both countries.
One problem is that in many countries there are either major companies that can block imports of foreign tobacco products, and in some there are even State monopolies. So exports of finished products are never going to be simple, but it should be possible to create products and brands and gradually build markets, so long as we have the right products.
This can be done. The Netherlands, for example, and to a lesser degree France, have flourishing exports of tobacco products, without growing any.
Netherlands producers even mention the sources of their tobacco on many of their products. So Zimbabwe, which can grow its own, should be able to do better.
This might require a wider range of leaf than the lighter flue-cured Virginia crop we concentrate on, but we have no doubts that our research centres and the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board would be happy to co-operate with manufacturers who wanted a lot more Oriental-styles, or the sort of leaf that can wrap and fill a cigar, or the other specialised requirements.
So we need imagination at the manufacturing stage as well, to match the sort of imagination seen at the farming stages.
This would create more jobs, boost exports and generally help push Zimbabwe forward. The major thrust for a producer of primary products, like Zimbabwe, is to connect these to industry so we can get a whole lot of extra jobs, value and money.
Online Reporter