Obert Chifamba Agri-Insight
What essentially started as a Presidential Inputs Support Scheme to cushion cotton farmers from prohibitive costs of production coupled with very unviable producer prices has morphed into a resurgent cotton industry climaxing in the re-opening of more than six Cottco ginneries countrywide where ginning has started in earnest.
These ginneries have been lying idle for years but are now up and running, which has generated over 3500 jobs. This season, deliveries of at least 110 000 tonnes of cotton are expected with over 11 000 tonnes having already come through since the cotton marketing season started just a month ago eclipsing the 10 000 tonnes delivered the whole of last year.
Over 45 000 tonnes of lint are expected to be ginned this season and 65 000 tonnes of seed cotton processed, while other by-products such as cooking oil and cotton cake will be produced from the crop.
On the one hand, employment levels at the country’s depots are expected to go up as every department within the premises is expected to be manned given the high seed cotton stock levels projected to be delivered for ginning. The cotton industry has just woken up from a deep slumber, thanks to the stimulus package of free inputs from the office of the President.
One of the country’s biggest ginneries in Chinhoyi is also up and running with expectations high that it processes about 25 000 tonnes of raw cotton also produced under the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme up from 700 tonnesginned last year. Government is expected to buy 98 percent of cotton this season.
It is interesting to note that the Presidential free cotton inputs have literally transformed the status of many people, for instance, rural women who until recently had forgotten about the joy of adding new utensils to their cabinets, changing furniture or buying additional livestock units, as they used to do when producing the crop was still rewarding.
Instead, the little they had was in some cases snatched out of their custody as private players sought to recover money they would have invested through contract farming.
These contracts in most cases left farmers licking bruised egos after things turned sour along the way. In most cases they would fail to interpret some of the conditions of the contracts correctly leaving them prone to manipulation and losing the little they had in the process.
Cotton is a source of livelihood for over 300 000 families, which translates into millions of people in rural areas. Sadly the majority of these families had over the years abandoned growing the crop following poor prices, which dropped to unprecedented levels and market distortions caused by private contractors.
Many had already started exploring new crop options with tobacco claiming its fair share of the disgruntled lot while traditional crops like maize were also slowly making their return as the crop of choice.
Prices of cotton had fallen to as low as $0, 30 per kilogramme and the traditional bonus payment had suddenly disappeared while in the instances that it was paid, it came very late when farmers would have struggled to mobilise inputs for a fresh outing.
This time around the cotton producer price has risen from 40 cents for D-grade to 47 cents per kilogramme. Of course the change in pricing came in the wake of extensive consultations by the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe after a realisation that 60 percent of cotton produced this season is A-grade material.
Farmers that delivered well before this change in pricing are expected to get their top ups soon, Cottco has indicated. This move will essentially see many farmers changing their minds and returning to growing cotton. But this is not all – Government has since pegged the cotton producer price at 55 cents per kilogramme for grade A cotton on top of the free cotton inputs.
Also, preparations for the 2017-18 cotton farming season have begun with more farmers being called upon to register while the free inputs under the Presidential scheme have already started being moved to various strategic distribution points countrywide. Fertilisers and seed are being moved to various collection points in all cotton growing areas at the moment.
Things continue getting bigger – this time the scheme is targeting to cover about 400 000 families with each expected to get inputs equivalent to a hectare.
The Presidential cotton free inputs scheme has now attracted the attention of many farmers who are indicating that they will grow the white gold this season.
This means that if the targeted 400 000 families grow a hectare of the crop each, they can produce between 350 000 and 400 000 tonnes if they work hand in hand with their Agritex officers in applying the best farming practices.
Anyway, the exciting thing is that once again, cotton farmers are smiling all the way to their fields and what they just need to do is start building on the strength of the free inputs to begin funding their operations on their own in the near future.
Government cannot sustain the momentum forever, as other sectors of the economy are also crying out for similar bail outs.
And, the textile industry must also be heaving a huge sigh of relief that some new lease of life if finally coming. Soon there will be meaningful manufacturing and jobs are once again being created.
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