Ibrahim Kasita
5 January 2009
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Kampala — Cotton is an important commodity providing employment opportunities and generating cash flow in the rural sector and providing the country with foreign exchange earnings either from raw cotton export or from value-added products.
On average the sale of cotton contributes 30% to 40% of the farmer's disposable income. This income is used for the welfare of families.
The cotton industry was liberalised in the early 1990s to attract foreign direct investments and eradicate poverty. This was an opportunity for the investors to make money.
Some merchants have genuinely invested in the agricultural sector but there are those 'free riding investors' who want to take advantage of illiterate farmers to make profits without investing back.
To protect the Government, stakeholders and consumers' interests, regulatory bodies were created.
This created the Cotton Development Organisation (CDO) that monitors and regulates the cotton sector, the Electricity Regulatory Authority, regulating the electricity sub-sector, National Drug Authority, Uganda Coffee Development Authority, National Environmental Management Authority to regulate and monitor the environment, among others.
All these regulatory bodies were created by Acts of Parliament to oversee their respective liberalised sectors.
It is self-defeating for another Government agency to call for the deregulation of the cotton watchdog. While bringing in investors is fine, it is important to consult the appropriate technical, monitoring and regulatory bodies to harmonise policies that will propel the co-existence of all stakeholders.
Liberalisation of the cotton sector has seen some recovery in production levels because ginners/investors agreed to support production-related activities which demanded the zoning of the cotton growing areas for production and marketing.
The collapse of the ginners' production support programme left a vacuum in the mobilisation of farmers for production, provision of inputs and farmers' training.
A Decline in cotton production is largely attributed to pest damage under organic cotton production and marketing and not to the late delivery of seeds.
Organic cotton may "have big market" but the fact is Uganda is not sufficiently competitive to rely on organic cotton production. Promotion of organic cotton at the expense of conventional cotton will not tally with the Prosperity for All prgramme.
Promoters of organic cotton in northern Uganda, especially in Pader district, are exploiting the ignorance and helplessness of the returnees from the camps for the internally displaced.
The so-called voluntary contracts with farmers do not exist a situation that has forced the district leaders to raise concern whether organic promoters are sufficiently regulated or just lacking corporate discipline.
This calls for the empowerment of the cotton regulatory body to plan, monitor and regulate cotton growing, ginning, licencing and controlling ginners, regulating and carrying out quality control of raw cotton and cotton ginning, regulating export and import of cotton lint or cotton seed.
Compilation and dissemination of production information, quality control, the registration of seed varieties, certification and the regulations of pesticides should be the work of the Cotton Development Organisation (CDO).
The CDO should also be empowered to set up and monitor standards and act as an arbitrator in the event of a dispute.
The quality of pesticides must be maintained by creating an effective framework for the regulation of pesticides.
I commend the Government's timely intervention of providing free seeds to farmers and pesticides, as well as the provision of extensive agronomical services, a situation that will lead to increased production of cotton.
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