Cotton revenue set to soar this year—Aicc

Players in the cotton sector are projecting revenue from the crop to rise to $12 million (about K8.7 billion), thanks to good prices and increased output than last year.

This means revenue will  rise by 200 percent from the previous year’s $4 million (K2.9 billion), according to African Institute for Corporate Citizen (Aicc) projections.

Aicc chief executive officer Felix Lombe said in an interview on Monday the country will produce slightly below 20 000 metric tonnes (MT) from last year’s 11 000MT.

“We are expecting an observable improvement from the cotton sector as records show that the crop is picking up although challenges faced by farmers in the sector still persist,” he said.

This year, the cotton marketing season opened end April with minimum price set at K375 per kilogramme (kg). The markets are expected to close in August.

The number of cotton farmers doubled this year from 30 000 last year bouyed by prospects of good prices.

Cotton Farmers Association of Malawi (Cofam) president George Mnesa, in an interview, expressed satisfaction with this year’s season, saying production as well as revenue has picked up.

“Farmers grew more cotton and a few had access to a better yielding crop variety. We were also privileged to have government setting the minimum price for the crop at K375/kg which is satisfactory.

“We want to believe that we are surely going to come out with more revenue this year compared to last year despite the fact some farmers started selling their crop at a lower price than the K375/kg set by government,” he said.

Cotton Council of Malawi executive director Crispin Luwanda in an earlier interview said this year’s prospects are high in terms of output and revenue.

“We are hoping for a substantial yield which translates to more revenue this year considering that we have invested in seed supply to farmers and made arrangements for the distribution of pesticides in collaboration with ginners,” he said.

Cotton is one of the country’s lucrative cash crops along  its value chain.

However, in the past six years, cotton production dropped by 85 percent from 100 000MT in 2010 when a K2 billion cotton fund played magic to around 15 000MT in 2016.

Last year, production of the crop stood at 11 000MT and is projected to jump to 13 000MT this year, according to Aicc.

Meanwhile, a 2018-2023 Cotton Strategy is under development and is set to deal with challenges the sector is facing. n