Zimbabwe cotton yield drops due to climate change

Zimbabwe's cotton production has dropped by about 1600 kilogrammes per hectare compared to last year, according to the Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU).

The country produced 590kg of cotton per hectare compared to 3000kg/ha recorded last year, Paul Zakariya, the ZFU executive director said.

Zakariya blamed the drop in cotton production on a host of problems facing farmers, among them, low producer prices and lack of funding.

"The cotton yield keeps going down. There is an urgent need to devise measures aimed at improving cotton production.

"There is also need to find mitigatory strategies to adopt due to challenges posed by changes in climatic conditions currently being experienced," Zakariya said in an interview.

Zakariya said to boost cotton production "focus should be on crop management, agricultural extension work and our soils need to be tested to establish if they are limed properly.

"Most soils were last tested 20-to 30 years ago."

Cotton is Zimbabwe's second largest foreign currency earner in agriculture after tobacco and is a source of livelihood for over 250,000 families in the drier parts of the country.

The current cotton selling season failed to start on time owing to differences between farmers and merchants.

Blaming poor world market prices, merchants offered between US$0.36 and US$0.50 per kg for grade A cotton.

The figure was rejected by farmers who argued that the prices barely covered the cost of inputs.

The government had to intervene and fix prices at between US$0.77 and US$0.84.

Agriculture, Mechanization and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made went to the extent of warning ginners who did not comply with the new prices that they risked losing their licenses.

Last year, Zimbabwe paid out the highest prices of seed cotton against regional counterparts.

The seed cotton prices in the country ranged from US$0,85 to US$1 per kg while Zambia and Malawi were buying the white gold at US$0,68 per kg and Mozambique at US$0,70 per kg