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Lovemore Zigara Midlands Correspondent
THE Cotton Producers and Marketers Association (CPMA) says cotton output will plummet by 11 percent this year as growers continue to abandon the crop in favour of more lucrative crops such as soya beans and tobacco.
Farmers have cited low cotton prices, which averaged $0,30 per kilogramme last year, as a reason for abandoning the cash crop.
CPMA president Clemence Gondo said indications were that cotton deliveries this season would be around 130,000 tonnes from 143,000 tonnes obtained last year.
“It’s no longer profitable to grow the crop hence you find that some farmers have abandoned the crop in favour of crops such as tobacco and soya beans especially for those in the Mashonaland provinces because they fetch more money on the market,” he said.
“Given such a scenario we’re now expecting deliveries for this year to be around 130,000 tonnes of cotton as there have been slow deliveries of the commodity. The producer price of cotton is very low. The government should come and set the minimum price of cotton to be around 65 cents per kilogramme, which would enable farmers to recover costs.”
Gondo implored the government to extend the Presidential Input Scheme to cotton so that cotton farmers are cushioned from costs such as chemicals, which he said were now beyond the reach of many.
The outcry by cotton marketers comes as the Cotton Ginners Association of Zimbabwe was last week ordered to stop setting prices for contracted farmers by the Competition and Tariff Commission.
The Cotton Ginners Association of Zimbabwe has been arguing that subsidised cotton from developed countries was killing the competiveness of Zimbabwean ginners.
Cheap Chinese textile imports have also had a major impact on the white gold.
Online Reporter