admin
Edgar Vhera Agriculture Specialist Writer
WITH a few days left before the end of the 2023 cotton marketing season, farmers have pocketed US$29 million plus $23 billion from the sale of 87 million kilogrammes of seed cotton as at August 17.
The Agriculture Marketing Authority (AMA) initially extended the cotton marketing season to August 15 before further extending it to end of August to ensure all produced seed cotton is sold.
Statistics released by AMA show that 86 774 917 kilogrammes of seed cotton valued at US$28 713 987 and $23 195 001 654 had been sold.
Cottco accounts for 77 percent of the seed cotton intake and prices among all the buyers ranged from US$0, 34 and US$0, 40 plus the local currency component. Its highly likely that the intake will end the season around 90 000 tonnes.
The current intake is 55 percent higher than last year’s total intake of 56 043 tonnes though it is lower than the anticipated 137 000 tonnes of seed cotton from merchants’ own first crop assessment.
This year’s seed cotton yield currently stands at 485 kilogrammes per hectare a 128 percent increase from last year’s 213 kg.
Private ginners have purchased 20 295 019 kilogrammes of seed cotton to date.
Cotton Ginners Association (CGA) acting chairman Mr Caos Nzenze said their members were likely to get half of the targeted 40 000 tonnes as a result of financial constraints among some of their members.
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 purchases are in the C and D grades with none in the A grade. It is difficult to achieve grade A due to weather pattern, pests and diseases,” he said.
Though there was a delay in the start of the ginning process, private ginners expect to finish ginning before the start of the rainfall season in October.
Meanwhile, in its weekly cotton update, Cottco said a total of 68 106 tonnes of seed cotton had been purchased since the beginning of the cotton marketing season. Gokwe accounted for 23 percent of the seed cotton purchases with Sanyati second at 17 percent while Chiredzi came third on 16 percent.
To date, farmers have received US$15, 30 million and $148, 10 million. Cottco has since paid 70 percent of the farmers’ dues with 30 percent now outstanding. It has also stepped-up input distribution for the 2023/24 season with 1 242 tonnes of basal fertiliser already delivered to Muzarabani, Gokwe, Chiredzi, Kadoma, Chinhoyi, Mutare, and Mt Darwin business units.
Online Reporter