The Cotton Board of Zambia said despite a number of farmers being affected by floods countrywide, including some cotton farmers, it still expect a slight increase in cotton production because there was a slight increase in number of farmers who were engaged in cotton production in the 2022/2023 farming season.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT – Cotton Board of Zambia Senior Inspector Nyambe Kwalombota said the board expects slightly more volumes than last year as more farmers went into cotton production as they were incentivized by the prices which were offered in the last season.
“There are chances that we may still produce more than what was produced in the previous year as a number of farmers that were engaged are still likely to get something from their fields.” He said.
He added that, “the weather indeed affected cotton because they were a lot of floods and when that happens cotton don’t progress very well but we still expect that a good percentage of the farmers will still be able to get something.”
“Zambia produced 245 000 metric tons of cotton in 2021/22 and we have not yet finalized our paper work to ascertain the 2023 productions but we should be able to give figures for the 2023 projections in the next two weeks after finalizing with paper work.”
“Of course you may be aware that some farmers had too much water and had abandoned their fields while some were not able to spray because of too much rains but like I stated, there was an increase in the number of farmers so we may still see an increase this year.” He remarked.
