Tawanda Mangoma in Chiredzi
Cotton farmers have challenged Government to urgently fulfil its pledge to pay them the five percent export incentive for lint exports, to cushion them from high operating costs.

The Cotton Producers and Marketers Association national chairman Mr Steward Mubonderi said cotton farmers were grappling with financial challenges that were affecting their capacity to procure sufficient inputs for their operations.

“Government promised to pay us five percent export incentive for our cotton, which was exported as lint to foreign markets but we are yet to receive the money,” he said.

“For us this is the right time for the money to be paid since we are facing a number of operational challenges, which might threaten our harvest this year. Firstly we need additional top dressing fertilizers as continuous rains were causing leaching in some areas while others need additional funds to purchase herbicides.’’

Mr Mubonderi said although they received money after cotton grades adjustments, it was not enough since most farmers failed to properly grade their cotton.

“We received cash adjustments from the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco) and we are grateful to the Government for that,” he said. “We are, however, confident that they will settle the export incentive issue soon since we managed to compile an updated data base for payments.”

Cotton farmers were this year encouraged to grade their crop as this would enable them to get payment adjustments for grade A and B cotton.

“We noted that most farmers failed to grade their cotton to expected standards. The adjustments were however, received by a smaller section of farmers who devoted their time towards grading their crop,” Mr Mubonderi said.

“This season we will make sure that our members grade their cotton. Back then private cotton companies used to mislead us about payment of adjustments and this demotivated farmers from undertaking this delicate excise.”

Government, through Cottco, has successfully financed the growing of cotton on 400 000ha, which was likely to yield over 150 000 tonnes of cotton this season.

Farmers had abandoned the growing the crop, known as the ‘’white gold’’, citing high production costs and falling lint prices on the international market.