Few
crops have been able fight off the earth-baking sun in parts of former Eastern
region. One of them, however, has been defiant. Cotton. You can spot it
sticking up boldly from the sandy soils of Makueni County. And in Meru County,
the soft, fluffy staple fibre beautifully bursts out of a boll.poor-quality-inputs-extension-services-and-prices-hamper-revival-of-cotton-farming The cotton industry can easily be the stem on which
President Uhuru Kenyatta builds one of his Big Four plans - reviving the
manufacturing sector and employing millions of jobless youth.
Yet,
large tracts of land in the parts of the country with a favourable environment
for growing cotton remain uncultivated. And the few who have grown the
drought-resistant plant, which does well at low altitude and can survive on
meagre rainfall, are not a proud a lot. After a series of
interviews with farmers in the arid and semi-arid parts of Kitui, Makueni, Meru
and Embu, you realise many of the old men and women still stuck in the trade
are simply nostalgic. Somehow they are hopeful that things will miraculously
revert back to the good old days when income from cotton helped them buy cows
and educate their children.
But
generally, costly inputs such as pesticides eat into their earnings, leaving
them with nothing. Moreover, the price they get paid by ginneries is not good.
Most of the farmers in Kitui feel exploited by middlemen who go round buying it
at a low-price from farmers and selling it at a high price to the mills. An official
from Fibre Crops Directorate, which manages cotton and sisal, told The Standard
that there is a feeling that farmers need to benefit from the whole value
chain, and not just lint and seed. Things started going badly in the
cotton sector in the early 1990s when the State stopped supporting certain
ventures, in what came to be known as structural adjustment programmes (SAPs).
Cotton
is one of the sectors that was left unattended, and thousands of farmers left
the trade. ALSO READ: Agriculture best bet for Kisumu County Farmers in Kitui
said almost half of them in the region dropped out of cultivating cotton,
citing poor prices and extension services, and expensive labour. Joseph Maweu,
a farmer in Makueni, said he left the trade after doing a cost-benefit
analysis. He says the cost of inputs has really gone up and they are being
exploited by middlemen. “Pesticide is a problem,” said Nelson Muturi, a cotton
farmer in Embu.
“If the
Government can help us with loans, we can get some very good yields.” Ginneries,
where farmers sell their cotton for separation of the lint from the seed, also
went silent. And the ones operating are not utilising their full capacity.
Currently, there are only four operational ginneries in the country at Makueni,
Kitui, Meru and Salawa, out of an establishment of 22 factories. There are
talks underway between the national government, county governments and other
value chain players to revive Mpeketoni, Malindi and Nyanza ginneries.
President
Kenyatta, during the 2017 Jamhuri Day celebrations in Nairobi, said the
Government will support framers to grow cotton and ensure the same is bought
locally. ALSO READ: Mumias seeks Sh4 billion bailout As part of his ambitious
plan to address his four key agenda, he said the entire textile industry will
receive adequate support from the Government and development partners among
other value chain players to guarantee farmers improved earnings. The big four
plan seeks to enhance manufacturing, food security, affordable housing and
health care for all. “Under the big four plan, we will support farmers to plant
cotton, which we guarantee to buy. We have revived Rivatex EA Ltd, our premier
textile manufacturer, and we will give incentives to investors to build more
modern ginneries and textile manufacturing plants,” said Uhuru. The Fibre
directorate is planning to introduce BT Cotton Seed, which is not easily
devastated by the American bollworm. The market for cotton, right from the
ginners to the spinners is lucrative. Spinners still have to go outside looking
for lint. “The Kenyan textile industry faces an inadequate supply of locally
produced cotton, and that which is available is of poor quality,” said World
Bank in a report on the country’s textile industry. “This means the majority of
export-quality fabric manufactured in Kenya is made from imported fibres due to
the poor quality and high trash content in local lint. The implication is that
the textile sector in Kenya has to choose between the high cost of imported
material and the low-quality of local fibre,” added the report. Fibre Crops
Directorate Interim Head Anthony Muriithi confirmed that a medium term plan is
being implemented, focusing largely on increasing production and quality.
Source: Daily Post, Nigeria Monday, 08 January 2018