adminSamuel Kadungure Farming Reporter
THE country’s cotton sector is in “an intensive care” with the 2015 /16 cotton take up estimated at 35 percent as most farmers were pushed out of business by the “good crop and poor price” dilemma of last season and the current drought. Cotton Producers and Marketers Association vice-chairperson, Mr Morris Mukwe told the Manica Post on Wednesday that farmers boycotted cotton production due to poor prices, while those who had had their crop affected by drought.
“We have 384 000 farmers across the country and we estimated the production level to be at 35 percent. If all farmers had gone back to the fields, we will be expecting 50 percent, but the majority has resigned given what happened last year.
“The situation is bad, though ginners are trying to make Government believe things are normal. I can tell you that the sector is in an intensive care. There is nothing from the eastern Lowveld to Gokwe, the situation is dire. There is totally nothing, the farmers were affected by two issues, namely the pricing (for the 2014/ 15 crop) and the current El Nino induced drought,” said Mr Mukwe.
Mr Mukwe said farming was a business and the farmers’ hopes of getting a return of their investment was extinguished after racking up huge losses for the past season due to lower prices offered by ginners.
He said the ever nose-diving price regime impacted them negatively and drowned them in serious debt. On the other hand, ginners demanded their money back, leaving them in a quandary that forced most of them to sell their cattle to cover the ballooning debts.
From the contractors and ginners point of view, it was the international prices of lint which year-by-year goes down that affected pricing.
Mr Mukwe said ginners used a one-price-fits-all system for all grades of cotton, an issue which pushed farmers out of business.
“We had a situation where ginners lied to the whole nation that farmers were putting stones and sand in the cotton bales and paid 30 cents per kilogramme.
“They further argued that they will need to grade the white gold first and then make price adjustments which never came through. The failure by ginners to honour the price adjustments pledge left cotton producers in a quandary,” said Mr Mukwe.
Mr Mukwe said the bulky of seed supplied by contractors died at germination due to drought and the companies were now supplying inputs to farmers who got free Government inputs.
“Government assisted cotton farmers with free inputs in an effort to revive the cotton sector. All the inputs requirements were catered for free, but we have realised that some companies are financing the crop which is not theirs. How are they going to recover their costs since the crop is not theirs?
“Their crop was affected by drought, but they now want to take advantage of the absence of an audit that should have exposed this reality. We want these companies and Agritex to do that audit,” said Mr Mukwe.
Government distributed 4 156 tonnes of seed to farmers. The seed was enough to cover 245 000 hectares.
In his 2016 national budget statement, Finance Minister, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, said farmers would get free inputs for the next three seasons to improve production and yields.
The cotton industry used to be vibrant in the 1990s with 350 000 farmers in the sector growing as much as 353 000 tonnes of cotton annually particularly at production peak in 2000.
Cotton was mostly grown in dry areas such as Muzarabani, Middle Sabi and Gokwe, among others. The cotton prices on the international market were competitive during that period.
The number of farmers has gone down to 200 000 who are growing about 135 000 tonnes annually. The output is expected to decline further this season due to poor rainfall and other challenges.
The decline in cotton production has also crippled the value chains in the cotton industry that include the clothing, spinning and weaving sectors.
Due to depressed cotton prices on the international market, many farmers abandoned the crop for other cash crops such as tobacco that had competitive prices.
Recently, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development chairperson, Mr Christopher Chitindi, said the issue of cotton was contentious and it seemed solutions were being offered without a problem assessment strategy.
He said the problem assessment strategy should include what is obtaining on the international market as it would be difficult to discuss or study the cotton sector without including it.
Mr Chitindi said the provision of free inputs would address the system challenges being faced, but not the actual problems. He said the failed system in the maize industry was being adopted and implemented in the cotton sector.
He said the availability of seed would not address matters of yield capacity and the provision of inputs would not address the contentious issue of market prices, which were determined on the international market.
“Our farmers must be convinced to go back to cotton production because a number of them are now in tobacco production. Free inputs will cut the cost of production for a farmer by at least 40 percent, but the 60 percent will have to be covered by the farmer.
“The resuscitation of Cottco and availability of inputs will fall in the same predicament as maize. It will not address price and yields capacity. But overall, we are happy that government has intervened by acquiring Cottco and by giving free inputs to farmers for the next three seasons,” he said.
Zimbabwean cotton yields ranged up to 17 000 plants per hectare, other cotton farming countries had very high yields of 45 000 to 50 000 plants per hectare. Cotton research was also said to be necessary to improve the quality of yields of cotton.
Most farmers are still nursing cotton from the previous year instead of putting new cotton crop. This brings in a lot of diseases that end up affecting the new cotton crop, and result on poor yields.
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