The Herald, 19 June 1987
DEVELOPMENT of Zimbabwe’s cotton industry, to the point where the crop is now grown by over 190 000 farmers has been made possible in no small measure by the expansion of the Cotton Marketing Board.
The CMB now operates a network of transit depots and ginnery depots at 17 points throughout the cotton growing areas of the country. Added to this is privately-owned ginnery at Triangle, which acts as an agent of the Board.
The board has opened depots strategically located to serve the needs of the farming community. Transit depots are primary marketing facilities built after independence to serve once-neglected communal lands, where seed cotton is graded and purchased before delivery to ginneries.
“The ginnery depots also grade and purchase seed cotton, as well as carry out the full ginning process, which is the mechanical separation of lint and cotton-seed,” said a CMB spokesman.
The depots serve two purposes, that of farmers in the area already growing cotton, as well as giving encouragement to more farmers to move into the crop. The most recently developed depots include ginneries at Sanyati (1984) and Bindura (1986) and a transit depot at Mauhwe in the Zambezi Valley (1985)
Lessons for today:
- This article allows us to connect the past (1987) with what is happening today in Zimbabwe. In the past, cotton was called “white gold” and was one of Zimbabwe’s top crops. Production peaked around 2010-2011 at about 350 000 tonnes.
- Production has fallen sharply in recent years. Some seasons dropped to as low as 13 000-28 000 tonnes. Recent recovery efforts show output around 38 000 tonnes in 2025/26.
