Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Golden Sibanda
9 November 2009
Harare — THE honeymoon is over for fly-by-night cotton buyers who now risk prosecution or severe penalties from the Agricultural Marketing Authority if they buy cotton whose production they did not fund.
This comes amid revelations that cotton contractors lost an estimated US$37 million in inputs to farmers and side-marketed contracted crop.
AMA has since set up a Cotton Marketing Technical Committee to register contractors and farmers contracted to grow the white gold this season.
Any unregistered buyer who buys from a contracted farmer or farmer who sells a contracted crop to an unregistered buyer shall be prosecuted.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union executive director Mr Paul Zakaria said the CMTC, under the auspices of the AMA, is empowered to prosecute or impose penalties on those who violate contract provisions.
"The legislation brought about CMTC, which has the responsibility to register, licence and issue certificates to growers, buyers or contractors and assists in setting up specific standards on this.
"When the farmers finally grow the crop they sell to contractors. The legislation empowers the CMTC to sue or fine offenders," said Mr Zakaria.
Last season, contractors provided inputs to the tune of US$12 million and lost out after most of the cotton was sold to fly-by-night buyers.
In addition, contractors lost an estimated US$25 million of the contracted crop to buyers who did not finance production of the crop.
The whole landscape has since changed as all contracted cotton growers or buyers need to register to buy or sell contracted cotton next year.
So far, 11 cotton grower contractors have registered with CMTC and these are Cottco, Cargil, Olam, Romsdal, Alliance, Grafax, Parrogate, Insing, FSI Cotton, Newcabview and CottZim.
Mr Zakaria said a total of 350 000 growers have been contracted to grow the white gold in the 2009 to 2010 agricultural cropping season.
Out of this 630 000 tonnes of the white gold is expected to be harvested.
Expectations are that following the formation of AMA there will not be anymore heated wrangles as farmers and buyers fail to agree on prices.
The absence of effective legislation and a clear pricing policy meant farmers and buyers always differed on the producer price resulting in most cotton growers opting to sell to fly-by-night buyers.
This resulted in some of the largest cotton contractors in the country threatening to stop or reduce funding to contract growers.
The differences over prices surfaced at the beginning of every selling season and threatened cotton production and the future of the industry.
Over the years Zimbabwe has lost is pole position as the continent's leading cotton exporter.
On the world stage the country is the second biggest exporter of lint cotton after Israel.
The country might be on the way back to the good old days as the establishment of AMA is set to ensure a smooth co-ordination of the cotton production process along the whole value chain.
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