ByTatenda Chambwe
For some decades, thousands of small scale cotton growers in Zimbabwe have been realizing good returns from their cotton seed. Many had their livelihood transformed for the better as they could manage a better lifestyle as well as paying for their children’s education.
But from a few years ago a dramatic change for the worse has been witnessed and this is being attributed to depressed prices of cotton on the world market. Analysts say this is mainly due to the low cotton demand, which then pushes prices down. Others blame it on the cheap synthetic fibres from countries like China which have resulted in flooding of cheap clothing commodities that many opt to buy at the expense of pure cotton products that are relatively expensive.
Cotton growers who began its production a long time ago shared their good memories of how attractive the crop has been which is why it had become as the “white gold”.
“I remember that just one bale of cotton could fetch enough cash to buy a beast. But of late the same bale cannot fetch enough to buy two bags of fertilizer. It’s quite a joke to hear the contracting companies pegging producer prices as low as 0.33 cents per kilogram; a price cannot buy a soft drink with. Honestly I have resolved never to grow this crop again and rather switch over to tobacco, it’s just so frustrating to say the least,” fumed Allan Gomo a grower in Guruve.
Another grower from Gokwe, well known as the hub of cotton production in Zimbabwe, Sibongile Sibanda (55) said, “Our problem in Gokwe is that we experience low rainfall which can sustain other lucrative cash crops like tobacco, otherwise many of us are no longer interested in growing cotton at all. But then for us we are left with no option as it is only cotton that does well in our area. We just hope the government will step in and resolve this critical issue for us to break even”.
A Cotton Ginner Association of Zimbabwe (CGA) official who preferred anonymity confirmed this development. He said about fifteen cotton companies which are members of the association are facing severe challenges with some on the brink of collapsing.
“Many of these companies, including some which have been major industry players have failed to meet their targets for more than two consecutive seasons because member of growers have been dwindling over the years. Still a member of growers who have continued cotton production have drastically scaled down their hectares. This has negatively affected many cotton companies and the industry,” he lamented. He went on to say that a big number of the industry workers are poised to lose their jobs in the short term.
Asked why the cotton companies are paying very poor producer prices which is why growers are now shunning production of this crop, he said, “Cotton companies are not really to blame for that because if the price is 0.85 cents for a pound of processed lint on the world market, how then can a cotton company pay a dollar per kg for raw seed cotton, it does not make any business sense at all you see. But then the major problem is that the majority of our growers do not understand these international market forces and fundamentals, they just want a high producer price”.
But from another perspective some growers blame the cotton companies for their plight and believe that these companies short change them.
“Much of our cotton production is financed by these companies and so they provide us with inputs on credit. The problem is they then overcharge us on these inputs which results in us being left with nothing when they take off their loan. So we end up realising nothing from a whole year’s family sweat,” Fungai Madondo (52) of Chinhoyi said.
In the recent past these challenges have given rise to issues like side marketing as growers attempted to fetch better prices from some buyers. Contracting companies have always cried foul whilst government has on many occasions intervened when stalemates on producer prices occur.
It now remains to be seen from this new cropping season, if the cotton industry is to survive. But the reality on the ground is largely that cotton production has greatly dropped. What have increased are sales of second hand clothes whilst label outfits are not leaving the shops shelves, due to very low sales because of relatively higher prices.
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