Mozambique: Cotton Companies Miss Targets

Practically all of Mozambique’s cotton companies missed their targets for the 2007/2008 agricultural year, according to the latest report from the Mozambique Cotton Institute (IAM).

The final data from the marketing of raw cotton from the 2008 harvest was that 69,500 tonnes was produced, over seven per cent lower than the target set at the start of the campaign, which was 74,000 tonnes.

This shortfall is blamed on the delays by the cotton companies in purchasing cotton grown by peasant farmers in the previous season. Many disappointed farmers reacted by abandoning cotton, and switching to other cash crops, such as sesame.

The IAM added that excessive rainfall in early 2008 meant that some cotton areas were not sown, and that some sown areas were inundated and the crop was lost.

As for cotton fibre, 25,300 tonnes was produced. The IAM has classified 23,300 tonnes, and the remaining 2,000 tonnes has not yet been classified. Of the classified cotton, 12,400 tonnes was exported, bringing in earnings of 18.8 million US dollars, at an average price of 1,430 dollars per tonne.

The IAM hopes for an improvement this year. The forecast is that an area of 168,000 hectares is under cotton cultivation, and should produce 80,000 tonnes of raw cotton.

This would reverse a trend of declining production. Thus in the 2006-07 campaign, 72,175 tonnes of raw cotton was produced - which was 40 per cent lower than production in the 2005-06 campaign.

Total revenue for the peasant cotton producer in 2008 was 386.9 million meticais (14.7 million dollars), at the price of 5.3 meticais per kilo of first grade cotton. Some producers, organised in associations, were able to negotiate with the companies for premiums ranging from seven to 13 per cent above the minimum price.

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Source: allafrica.com