Brighton Gumbo, Business Reporter
AGRICULTURE, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made says the government will assist scores of farming households in the country with cotton inputs as part of measures to increase output.

Responding to a question on what the government was doing to help vulnerable cotton farmers, the minister said support would be given particularly to farmers in dry regions.

“What we’re really looking at this year is the issue of cotton. We’ll be assisting households,” said Made.

“We’ll be assisting them with cotton inputs especially in the dry regions. We’re still discussing the issue, but at the end of the day we know that we’ll assist.”

He said the government was also working on revamping irrigation schemes as part of efforts to assist small holder farmers.

“We’ll be looking at fertilizers and crop chemicals because those are mostly expensive for cotton farmers. We know that we’ll get good harvests from there. We’ll also get seed cake where we can get cotton cake,” he said.

Meanwhile, the minister said the payment of farmers who had delivered their maize to the Grain Marketing Board for the 2013/14 season was done yesterday.

Cotton production used to contribute to sustainable incomes as the mainstay of rural communities.

The development of areas like Gokwe, Sanyati, Rushinga, Checheche and Muzarabani has been partly influenced by the growing of cotton.

Apart from volatile international prices, the decline in cotton production has been attributed to extreme weather, poor distribution of rain, side marketing, high input costs and the decline in yield per hectare.