admin“In some areas they are picking the crop while others are tending the cotton and reports that we got from different growing areas indicate that this year’s yield and the quality of the crop has improved,” he said.
“In preparation for the marketing season as stakeholders, we will be meeting before the end of next week to negotiate on the new producer price of cotton.”
In the last marketing season, cotton fetched $0.85 a kilogramme for grade D, which is the lowest while Grade A, which is the highest, fetched $1,05c a kg.
Mr Zakariya could not be drawn into revealing his union’s proposed producer price saying: “Negotiating is a process, which should be done in confidence and I cannot pre-empt the negotiation process. But the negotiation process involves the presentation of production budgets by the farmers as well as the presentation of ginning cost by the ginners before coming up with proposed prices.”
He said in the 2011/12 farming season 433 000 hectares were put under cotton compared to 379 689ha in 2010 representing a 114 percent increase.
In recent years before the promulgation of Statutory Instrument 142 of 2009, which regulates Zimbabwe’s cotton industry, the country was losing $15 million annually due to poor cotton grade delivered by farmers.
As a result of the regulatory framework, output in the industry jumped by 30 percent to 270 000 tonnes in 2010 from 207 000 in 2009.
Cotton producer price negotiations also involve the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) and the Ginners Association of Zimbabwe.
Efforts to get a comment from the ZCFU president Mr Donald Khumalo and the Ginners Association of Zimbabwe director general Mr Godfrey Buka were futile.
In the previous season, cotton farmers raked in $200 million almost double the amount they earned in 2010.
The improvement in income was due to the high international lint prices although there was a seven percent drop in production.
Online Reporter