Cotton Board of Zambia Senior Cotton Inspector says the board is projecting to harvest about 50, 000 tons next year from the currentproduction.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times -ZBT , Cotton Board of Zambia Senior Cotton Inspector Derrick Sichilima said, looking at the current Weather predictions, and if all things go well and there are good rains it will be guaranteed that they will have a better season come next year.
“Currently the farmers that got involved in Cotton production were just about 70,000 against a total of 194,000 from the previous farming season,” He said.
Sichilima added that there has been a very big drop in terms of the numbers of cotton farmers , stating that the weather itself has also played a part in causing people to abandon cotton farming as the weather was not favorable.
“They were some farmers that planted early , and the crop got established and then they were those that planted late and by the time they were planting the rains had gone , so those abandoned the crop, so we did not even count them to say these were the cotton farmers, because they had no harvest.” He said.
Sichilima further stated that most farmers abandoned cotton farming and went full force into growing maize because Maize was highly popularized so most of them had opted to go for maize and soya beans as well as tobacco in the Eastern province as these were the competing crops .
“The price had also contributed , looking at it that the other year the price was at K15 and then in 2023 the price dropped to K6 which heavily contributed to most of the farmers dropping out of cotton farming.” He said.
He further stated that currently the price has improved to K9.50.
Meanwhile Sichilima further called on more farmers to come on board and venture into cotton production so that they can work together and be able to supply the 70,000 metric tons that the Mulungushi Textiles Will be needing in terms of raw materials.
He further disclosed that there is need to guarantee cotton farmers on a good price.Sichilima also urged farmers to venture in cotton farming, stating that government is willing to support about 100,000 cotton farmers .
