Patrick Chitumba
As if the fall in cotton prices is not enough, cotton farmers are watching helplessly as their profit margins are further eroded by unscrupulous officials demanding bribes to process payments.

After toiling under the hot Gokwe sun to harvest their crop, farmers who take cotton to buying centres in the district have to part with $5 a bale to unscrupulous buying clerks manning the points.

Cotton farmers are also under siege as ginners have engaged debt collectors to recover costs incurred in funding the 2014-2015 agricultural season and to add salt to injury, most of the farmers have been waiting to receive their dues for up to a month of selling cotton.

As a result corruption, hunger, unnecessary arguments, animal brutality are the order of the day at buying points as farmers — facing starvation — are forced to bribe cashiers so that they jump the queues.

Hundreds of donkeys and cattle are used to ferry the bales to the collection points and are not fed until the owners have been served because the points have no water facilities nor do they have ablution facilities for the farmers.

The Chronicle visited some of these buying points recently and witnessed a sorry state of affairs for struggling farmers and their livestock.

Cotton companies used to have over 50 buying points in Gokwe but this year, only about 14 points have been put in place.

Farmers said prices being paid by cotton companies were a pittance compared to labour they put in.

Companies are buying the crop at $0.30 a kg. At the end of the day, a farmer is taking home $60 per 200kg bale.

After spending months tending the crop, the farmers have nothing to show for their sweat and most of them are now on the brink of losing their livestock and property to companies which supplied them with the farming inputs as they move in to recover their costs.

A farmer from Zvimbishi Village under Chief Chireya, Peter Manyani, said after realising only four bales because of the drought, he was expecting $240.

He said Cottco’s input credit scheme had previously led to the development of Gokwe and an improvement in the livelihoods of the small-scale producer but the contract system has reduced farmers to mere labourers.

“We rely on these contractors but unfortunately we’re now labourers for them as there’s no profit to be realised because of the poor producer prices and high input costs,” said Manyani who was taking his bales to Nemangwe collection point.

He said he feared that his contractor (name supplied) was going to descend on him and take away his livestock as he had taken inputs from them.

“I regret taking the farming inputs, but what can I do? After realising $240 it will all be taken by the contractor and I still owe him $500 and I know they will come to recover their money.”

At Gwebo buying point, over 200 farmers were waiting to be served by one cashier who was representing six cotton buying companies.

Farmers said they are being forced to bribe the cashier so that they are given their money on time.

Trevor Masimira said he had been waiting to sell his bale for four days after travelling for 30km from Maware to the market.

“As you can see we’re more than 300 farmers and to get service here very fast, we’re forced to pay $5 bribe,” he said.

Alice Musanhiko said the falling international prices of cotton and unfair domestic trade policies continue to dash her hopes. She said this was her last season to grow cotton.

“We’re crying foul because we can’t recoup production costs. These companies are ripping us off. The crop has been our only source of livelihood but sadly, we’ve been left destitute with nothing to show for our sweat,” she said.

The issue of pricing continues to dog the cotton industry, with farmers remaining resolute in their push for higher prices of at least $0,80 per kg while ginners are digging in, arguing that they were price takers since cotton prices were determined internationally.

Some farmers are withholding their crop to force ginners to increase cotton prices.

Tambudzai Mazise has over 10 bales at his homestead.

He said he was holding on to his crop until the prices increased. But will he win the price war? Only time will tell since there are only a few days before the end of the month when ginners pack their stuff and leave the collection points.

“Those that are selling are desperate. A 200kg bale of cotton is going for as little as $60. What’s that really? It’s very unrealistic,” said Mazise.

He said some of the farmers had taken out loans so they could carry out their farming activities.

“The poor cotton prices compounded by poor yields will result in poor repayment of loans which were accessed for the farming season.

“Soon we’re going to see companies going around attaching properties belonging to farmers who failed to settle their debts and that will result in the cycle of poverty continuing for the cotton farmer,” he said.

While previous seasons saw these companies buying the crop separately, the issue is different this season and has been met with suspicion. The converging of the cotton companies means that there is no more bidding and farmers are being forced to sell their crop at an imposed price.

A cashier at one of the collection points speaking on condition of anonymity said cotton companies had reduced collection points to cut expenses related to labour for weighing and loading the bales into trucks.

“We pay rentals to the Gokwe Rural District Council for this space and we used to have a lot of them which meant more expenses but since we merged we’ve reduced them,” he said.

Gokwe Chireya legislator Cde Cephas Sindi said the situation in Gokwe was pathetic adding that they had tried in vain to help farmers get the best out of the crop.

“Farmers are entering into contract farming with these companies and such agreements aren’t reversible and most risk losing property and livestock because they’re not going to be able to repay the loans because of low yields. So it’s really a sad situation here,” said Cde Sindi.

He urged farmers to desist from entering into contract farming which is always biased towards the ginners.

Cde Sindi said the lower prices were also affecting the livelihood of farmers whom he said were left with nothing after selling their crop.

He said as the local leadership there was nothing they could do to assist the farmers adding that the matter was now in the hands of Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA).

Chief Nembudziya said AMA, farmers’ unions and the Cotton Ginners Association should go back to the drawing board and save the farmer and the sector at large.

He said cotton farming now resembled modern day slavery where ginners were out to maximise on profit at the expense of farmers.

Chief Nembudziya said it was high time the government intervened to save his subjects as they were going to lose property and livestock.

“It’s difficult my son. Things aren’t okay here. I hear they’re trying to talk but we all know that the farmer is always on the receiving end. But what can we do? Should we abandon cotton farming?

“But we can’t because we depend on it since it thrives under these conditions in Gokwe,” said Chief Nembudziya.

Even businesspeople in Gokwe who would normally be gleefully rubbing their hands in anticipation of brisk business around this time of the year are expecting low business as farmers have not realised profits this season.

In the 2012 to 2013 season 115,891 hectares were under the white gold in Midlands province but the figure went down to 59,830 hectares in the 2013 to 2014 season.

Earlier this year AMA chief executive officer Rockie Mutenha told Parliament that cotton farmers and ginners faced serious pricing issues which discourage them from continuing to produce the crop.

In the country, cotton production has been on a downward trend with the 2014 season recording an output of 140,000 tonnes, down from 145,000 tonnes the previous season in a country that has the potential to produce 600,000 tonnes.

The closure of Cargill’s local cotton business and the folding of the Cottco, may lead to the collapse of the country’s cotton industry which has been facing a number of viability challenges over the years.

Cotton experts argued the government should have bailed out companies, particularly Cottco which was responsible for setting-up input credit schemes for cotton producers in 1992, most of them smallholder farmers.

Cargill in October last year announced that it was closing its local cotton business due to operational challenges.

The company, which had contracted over 20,000 farmers, said it had significantly suffered from low cotton output, depressed margins as well as high levels of breach of contractual obligations by cotton farmers.