Cotton production declines in Zambia

15 March 2010, The Post
URL: http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=6910

Lusaka:  The cotton industry is facing unacceptable low cotton yields which average between 450-650 kilogrammes per hectare depending on climatic conditions.

In a statement Cotton Association of Zambia (CAZ) executive director Joseph Nkole stated that the low yield per hectarage was one of the constraints that players in the cotton industry were trying to overcome.

“Until recently the cotton ginners have increased production primarily through the recruitment of additional growers. This approach encouraged the “ranching” of cotton by many thousands of farmers who have been satisfied with relatively unattractive returns in the absence of alternative market opportunities,” he stated.

Nkole stated that low yields and unattractive returns to labour in particular resulting from poor management practices had in recent times impacted the cotton industry.

“Farmers are also less resilient to lower prices offered by the ginners resulting from softening international market prices and/ or abrupt currency exchange rate fluctuations,” he stated.

He stated that the rapid strengthening of the kwacha at the onset of the 2005/06 season and a 30 per cent reduction in cotton prices resulted in the immediate exit of 100,000 farmers and a resultant 40 per cent to 50 per cent reduction in seed cotton production.

Nkole added that the industry as a whole was yet to recover from this setback despite a return to more attractive prices.

Nkole added that the dramatic strengthening of commodity prices particularly oilseeds such as soyabeans, sunflower and groundnuts were also posing an additional threat to the cotton industry.

“More attractive alternatives, at least in theory, now exist and in the absence of protective legislation. Farmers who are dissatisfied with cotton prices and net returns are more likely to default on their contractual obligations and side-sell their production to alternative buyers,” said Nkole.