Zimbabwe Cotton Notches 68% Increase
22 June 2006 Zimbabwe’s 2006 seed cotton harvest is expected to be 330,000 metric tons (MT), an increase of nearly 70% compared to 2005. Likewise, lint production is estimated at 135,300 MT compared to 80,360 MT in 2005, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service (USDA-FAS).
Increased planted area – which reached 370,000 hectares (Ha), compared to 300,000 in 2005 – and normal to above-average rainfall helped boost the country’s product. The harvest could be even better, if the scarcity of nutrients and other inputs did not stunt the crop’s growth potential.
Since 1994, the number of cotton buyers in Zimbabwe has increased from one to 15. However, only a few ginning companies currently support production by providing inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, or extension support to contracted farmers. Buyers who are not investing in the crop are encouraging side marketing of the contracted crop by offering higher prices, leading to many farmers breaching contractual agreements and threatening the viability of contract growing in the industry, reports USDA-FAS. As a result, input scheme providers have reduced the level of their input support to growers to minimize the losses from poor recoveries of seed cotton. In the long-term this reduction in support may lead to a decline in production. This proliferation of cotton lint merchants has also resulted in a decline in quality standards of lint.
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