Only 34pc of farmers delivered seed cotton to Cottco

Edgar Vhera-Agriculture Specialist Writer

COTTCO has lamented the high default rate by farmers who have benefitted from the Presidential Input Scheme (PIS) under the Pfumvudza/Intwasa programme after only 34 percent of input beneficiaries delivered seed cotton for sale in the just ended season.

The rest either side-marketed or defaulted farming the crop.

Cottco board chair Mr Sifelani Jabangwe said this at the commemoration of the 2023 World Cotton Day in Harare recently.

Mr Jabangwe was responding to concerns by stakeholders on late payment for seed cotton.

“As Cottco we are worried that only 124 000 farmers have delivered seed cotton out of over 360 000 beneficiaries who were registered and received inputs.

“Some of the beneficiaries diverted the inputs through side production or selling the inputs. In the coming season we are considering supporting farmers who have delivered, to increase their productivity,” Mr Jabangwe said.

Cottco last year posted the following on Twitter: “The company has witnessed rampant abuse of seed, fertilisers and chemicals that farmers have been receiving since October under the Presidential Cotton Input Scheme.

“Farmers register to receive inputs and thereafter take the inputs to sell to other people thereby diverting the inputs from their intended use.”

The Twitter handle post warned farmers against the vice and activated its input tracking system and setting up a WhatsApp group to report abuse of inputs.

Last year Cottco recovered 50 tonnes through its loss control department, working in cahoots with the operations department. Defaulters were arrested and brought before the courts of law.

Mr Jabangwe believes that the actual national cotton yield was much higher than the 300 to 400 kilogrammes per hectare as the planted area was much lower due to input diversion.

Mr Jabangwe said Cottco will clear all outstanding debts by end of October in response to queries raised by legislators from cotton growing areas who wanted to know when the affected farmers would receive their outstanding money.

“Cottco has paid 70 percent of all farmer payments for seed cotton delivered this year with the balance of 30 percent to be paid by end of October.

“In future, we promise to pay farmers on time. The main challenge with cotton production is that it’s a 13-month industry from the time we prepare for planting until the time we get income from export proceeds.

“Farmers want payments within six months but this year we had liquidity challenge with our bankers and we could not draw down to pay farmers on time,” the Cottco board chair said.

Mr Jabangwe said the US$30 million seed cotton purchase facility promised by Government had not yet been availed and once received, they plan to use it as a standby facility to draw down from.

In the 2023 cotton marketing season Cottco bought 68 872 187 kilogrammes (77 percent) of seed cotton out of the total production of 89 629 337.

This year’s national seed cotton yield increased 135 percent from 213 kilogrammes per hectare in 2022 to 501 kilogrammes per hectare this year.