admin
Edgar Vhera-Agriculture Specialist Writer
THE curtain finally comes down on the 2023 cotton marketing season today after the Agricultural Marketing Authority’s (AMA) decided to extend it by a further two weeks from July 31 to allow farmers to complete delivering their seed cotton with sold volumes standing at 86 million kilogrammes as at August 10.
This is a 74 percent increase from the 49 million kilogrammes traded during the same time period last year.
Statistics released by AMA show that the four cotton buyers purchased 85 920 590 kilogrammes of seed cotton valued at US$28 440 927 and $22 885 283 553. This was an increase from last week’s 82 549 067 kg of produce worth US$27 305 929 and $21 888 292 568.
The prices ranged from US$0, 34 and US$0, 40 plus the local currency component. The main contractor, Cottco accounts for 77 percent of the purchases.
The current intake is a 54 percent increase from last year’s total intake of 56 043 tonnes with amid indications that it is now highly unlikely for the projected 137 000 tonnes of seed cotton from merchants’ own first crop assessment to be achieved, let alone the 152 472 tonnes proclaimed after the final crop, livestock and fisheries assessment report (CLAFA 2).
This year’s seed cotton yield currently stands at 480 kg per hectare, a 125 percent increase from last year’s 213 kg and slightly below the final crop, livestock and fisheries assessment report’s (CLAFA 2) estimate of 520 kg per hectare from the planted 178 864ha.
Private ginners bought 19 807 590 kg seed cotton to date with Cotton Ginners Association (CGA) acting chairman Mr Caos Nzenze conceding it was now very unlikely for them to achieve their anticipated target of 40 000 tonnes due to financial constraints among some of their members.
“I think we are likely to get half of our targeted 40 000 tonnes as a result of financial constraints dogging some of our members. We will still be buying seed cotton until August 15 (today) from common buying points (CBP) that are still open,” he said.
Mr Nzenze said their members were paying farmers, as they purchased the seed cotton and had started paying grade based differential prices though most of the produce graded so far was in grade D.
Most of the seed cotton purchased is in the C and D grades with none in the A grade.
It is difficult to achieve grade A due to unfavourable weather patterns, pests and diseases, he said.
There was a delay in the start of the ginning process with private ginners currently operating at 20 percent though they expect to finish before the start of the rainy season in October.
Online Reporter