Agri — In 1980, farmers delivered 157 533 tonnes of seed cotton to the then sole seller and buyer of the crop, Cotton Marketing Board (CMB).
Essentially, this translated to 1 752 kilogrammes per hectare, which was a sterling performance for the communal farmers who were and are still the dominant producers of the crop.
Fast-forward to 2023, 43 years later, the script had transformed into something else -- farmers managed to deliver 90 084 tonnes of the white gold.
In other words, their best shot was 504 kilogrammes per hectare.
This, however, marked an improvement from the 2022 season's 56 043 tonnes, which represented a yield of 213 kilogrammes per hectare.
This is clear evidence that with concerted efforts from various stakeholders on the backdrop of Government's turn-around programmes for the crop, yields can start improving.
This change of fortunes witnessed in the 2023 season was evidence to the impact of Government's interventions together with the private sector.
Obviously, the sector will not return to its erstwhile glory overnight, but the process will take some bit of time.
The sobering reality worth appreciating is that rising yields must also be complemented by an improvement in the performance of other value chain actors.
These must demonstrate that they are inspired by the common goal of allowing cotton of empowering the farmers and kick-starting the process of modernising rural areas through infrastructural developments that will be vital for value adding the crop.
The drop in yields witnessed in the past four decades is evidence that something was just not adding up for the industry, which is largely touted as a vehicle of economic emancipation for communal farmers by all and sundry.
Cotton has the potential to transform countryside communities into active economic hubs that can easily form the nucleus of the urbanisation process the country is pushing to achieve come the year 2030.
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Minister Anxious Masuka did not mince his words when he described cotton and sunflowers as engines for economic transformation of communities during last year's commemorations of World Cotton Day in Harare.
Minister Masuka aptly outlined Government's role as facilitator and actor in the cotton value but quickly reminded the nation that this role would cease immediately when the sector becomes fully established to focus on facilitation.
The whole idea behind Government's serious commitment to participate in the cotton production and marketing processes is to ensure the sector is transformed from its current depressed performance to a situation in which grower viability is guaranteed through high yields and high earnings too.
Cotton is a major source of livelihood for approximately two million people -- from growers, farm workers, their families and industrial worker.
The crop can contribute immensely to income and employment creation while contributing to national foreign currency earnings.
As an oilseed, cotton can easily become a key cog in the rural industrialisation process once produced in lavish quantities to allow value addition to start.
Once this happens, it means rural communities can forget about rural-urban migration problems resulting from the desire by residents to move to towns in search of jobs because the processing industries will create employment.
Other segments of the value chain will also play their part to leave the communities economically sound and able to hold their own.
Justifiably, the sector has evolved from accounting for one percent of the commercial agriculture output in 1965 to about 10 percent to date, which is a significant contribution to national economic development.
It will not take rocket science for anyone to realise that profitable production of the crop will benefit millions of people along the value chain.
Interestingly, it will not be the ordinary people and farmers only who will benefit with entities like rural district councils and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) to name just a few, also getting their fair share of the cake.
The above attributes of the crop make it crucial for everyone to pause for a moment and try to understand how this industry can be saved from further plummeting and returned to its yesteryear glory and begin operating more viably than what it is doing.
It is a common secret that cotton farming has vast potential to lead the rural industrialisation the country is pushing to achieve but this is only possible if it is performing viably.
This has to start with farmers getting better access to inputs, something that Government is taking care of through the Presidential Inputs Scheme but it can only do so much.
There are, however, those farmers who naturally target bigger hectarages than what allocations from Government would cover hence the need to buy more inputs.
This group of farmers will obviously need to access those requirements at affordable and competitive prices that allow them to break even later.
Private sector players must also play their part in saving the industry given that everyone will at some point interact with products produced from cotton hence the need to support its production.
Financial institutions have been known for their reluctance to work with the smallholder farmers who form the bulk of cotton growers but they can always tailor-make products to suit the levels of their various clientele.
They need to come up with schemes that suit various farmer categories and also find ways via which they can later recoup the money they would have invested come the marketing season.
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High interest rates from the few risk-taking financial institutions are one of the biggest talking points that must be addressed first if the push to make cotton farming easy is to succeed.
One other important observation is that prices of various services and critical inputs must also be reasonable to allow the farmers to break even after selling their produce.
The farmers' biggest undoing at the moment is in the form of delayed payments that usually take months on end to come yet the farmers badly need the earnings to sponsor fresh farming programmes and meet other socio-economic demands.
The issue of unviable prices culminating in very low payments that come after an eternity has in recent seasons been the major challenge farmers are having to contend with.
This has pushed some to abandon the cotton for other crop options where they see better chances of making quick money and improve their lives.
Some farmers have since opted to grow new crops like sesame while others have moved to tobacco, to cite just a few.
The abandonment of the crop for better paying options will only counter the momentum Government's intervention programmes had gained in recent times.
Allowing the cotton industry to die will be a misdemeanour analogous to an act of profanity in a great temple.
That must not be allowed to happen.
