Paul Busharizi
8 February 2008
Kampala — Farmers selling cotton in Kasese. Monopolistic buying of organic cotton in northern Uganda should be checked before farmers are ripped off.
The cotton harvest season is on in northern Uganda but the prospects are not good for the crop.
Hoodwinked into pledging their crop to one company, which is trying to dubiously push organic cotton farming upon the region, the farmers have used little or no pesticide or herbicides with the resultant effect that yields per acre are down to their lowest since the resumption of cotton growing in the region three years ago.
Exhausted and traumatised from the LRA insurgency, another war has broken out - and this one is for the cotton farmers of northern Uganda.
In a fast changing world when cotton producers are looking for cheaper sources of raw materials, northern Uganda is ideal for several reasons.
To begin with, the cotton fields have been fallow for the better part of the last 20 years, guaranteeing higher yields and better quality crop. And then because of the Government's liberalisation policy, there are no official barriers to entry.
In addition cotton's fortunes are in the ascendance - boosted by the return to production in northern Uganda and West Nile, a record 250,000 bales was produced three seasons ago, the highest ever recorded since the 1970s.
In the 1967 to 1970 seasons, 457,000 bales were produced, due to neglect and conflict in most of the cotton producing areas, this number plummeted to 15,000 bales in 1993.
Against this backdrop of promise, certain industry players have taken advantage of the new global push towards organic farming and the huge premiums the crops in this industry promise.
To sell to the world as an organic farmer certain standards have to be met. In cotton's case producing farmers have to be carefully selected, trained and supported before their crop can be certified as organic.
Northern Uganda's attraction is that since the land has been fallow - free of pesticides and herbicides, for the last 20 years, the process to certify land as fit for organic production can be reduced from four to one year.
During the period of certification farmers have to be trained how manage their fields against pests and increase yields using organic inputs.
Organic farming yields are rarely as much as the yields from cotton grown using inorganic inputs but it is understood that high prices should offset these losses.
So when the Cotton Development Organisation (CDO) announced an indicative price of sh600 a kg of regular cotton, a major buyer in northern Uganda said he would pay a 25% premium on that or sh750 per kg of organic cotton.
Without preparing farmers, this major cotton buying house signed up a few hundred farmers to supply it with organic cotton. Under the conditions, the farmers were not allowed to use regular pesticides or herbicides.
The effect on crop production has been devastating to the point that the CDO thinks production will fall by as much as half compared to last year's 134,000 bales.
Ironically, in western Uganda - Bunyoro, Kasese and Bunyaruguru, farmers using regular methods of cotton production have registered yields nearly 10 times those reported in northern Uganda and West Nile.
A survey last year shows that in Kasese yields during this harvest are expected to come in at up to 600 kg an acre versus the 70 kg an acre in the West Nile-Lira growing belt.
By circumventing normal organic farming procedure - not preparing the farmers, while offering a superior price, this buyer has effectively squeezed out the regular cotton buyers and if they continue unchecked will have a virtual monopoly in northern Uganda in a few year's time.
Cotton unlike coffee or tea is an annual crop, meaning it is planted every year, so farmers frustrated from one season to the next can easily stop cotton production. This is a very likely scenario if this buyer gains a stranglehold on the region's cotton production.
Surprisingly, there has been nary a squeak from the politicians of the region who must know what's going on but are suspiciously quiet as their constituents are led like sheep to the slaughter.
In the meantime, cotton yields have gone through the floor and if nothing is done, farmers will be left at the mercy of this one cotton buyer, after all the other players have relocated.
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