Cotton Board projects increase in Cotton Production

• Cotton production is projected to increase to 60, 000 metric tonnes from 54, 000 metric tons.
• Ministry of Agriculture has projected half of what Cotton board is projecting.
• The actual figure that was received in the gin last year was about 54, 000 tonnes.

Cotton Board of Zambia says this year’s cotton production is projected to increase to 60, 000 metric tonnes compared with 54, 000 metric tons recorded in 2019/2020 agriculture season.
Speaking in an interview with Money FM News, Board Senior Cotton Inspector Nyambe Kwalombota said this is contrary to government’s projected reduction of about 31, 859 metric tonnes in the 2020/2021 agriculture season from 41, 441 metric tonnes recorded in the 2019/2020 season.
Mr. Kwalombota stated that Ministry of Agriculture’s projection of 31, 859 metric tonnes is half of what the Cotton Board is expecting which is 60, 000 tonnes.
“I don’t know where the figures originated from but there could be other mechanisms that the Ministry of Agriculture used to come up with that figure, but the figure which we have as Cotton Board which I think have been collected and compiled by all ginners are showing a similar trend to last year because even last year we did not harvest about 41, 000 metric tonnes.”
“The Ministry has projected half of what we are projecting, ourselves we are projecting 60, 000 and government is projecting 31, 000,” Mr. Kwalombota said.
He added that what has been collected and compiled by all ginners is showing a similar trend to that of last year which is about 54, 000 metric tonnes and not 41, 000 as recently announced by government.
“The actual figure that was received in the gin, was about 54, 000 tonnes and this year we are projecting in the range of about 60, 00 tonnes. It might be a drop but within the same range, because and what the stakeholders and ourselves have come up with, is about 60, 000 plus minus 10 percent variation, this is an estimate that we are talking about.”
“So we are talking about a crop size of about 60,000 tonnes, which could be in the range of 57, 000 tonnes, 58, 000, or 62, 000 and that’s what we have projected for the 2020/ 2021 season,” he stated.
Former Ministry of Agriculture Michael Katambo recently announced that Cotton production is expected to reduce from 41, 441 metric tonnes recorded in the 2019/2020 season to 31, 859 metric tonnes in the 2020/2021 agriculture season.
“The production is expected to decline from 41, 441 metric tonnes produced in the 2019/2020 agriculture season to 31, 859 metric tonnes in the 2020/2021 agriculture season. This decline in the production of cotton is the second in two consecutive years.”
“Government is concerned that as a country we lag behind other African countries in the production of Cotton and we will continue to engage our stakeholders to address the challenges in the sector,” Mr. Katambo said.

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