TRADE: Burkina Faso Records Bumper Cotton Crop, Despite Depressing Market

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Brahima Ouedraogo

BOBODIOULASSO, Feb 18 2004 (IPS) - Burkina Faso has recorded a good cotton harvest this year, despite the depressing international market.

Yield rose to 500,000 metric tonnes, with farmers predicting a record 600,000 metric tonnes in 2004-2005.

SOFITEX, the Benin Fibre and Textile Company, which sells cotton on the international market, has just received a 40.5-billion-franc (around 80-million-dollar) loan from an international banking consortium. It has also obtained 65 billion francs (around 128 million dollars) from banks in Benin to help it reach its cotton-production targets.

The funds will allow SOFITEX, which has interest in Burkina Faso, to pay farmers on time this year. With the money, cotton producers will buy fertiliser and pesticides on time for the next agricultural season.

“As producers we hope that we can be paid as soon as the cotton has been sold,” said Francois Traore, president of the National Union of Cotton Producers of Burkina Faso (UNCPB).

This year farmers will earn 100 billion francs (196.1 million dollars), as compared to a mere 13 billion francs (about 26 million dollars) a decade ago. The windfall could reach 125 billion francs (245.1 million dollars) next year if the expected 20 percent increase in production is realised.

“It’ll be easy to produce 600,000 tonnes with the confidence that SOFITEX and the banks are showing in us by getting the producers paid on time,” Traore said. “Otherwise, how can we fight poverty if we don’t produce when conditions are ripe?”

Traore, whose organisation has held a 30-percent interest in SOFITEX since the cotton industry was revitalised in 1996, said: “We’re prepared to increase the yield and earn more by using more fertiliser and pesticides, as that allows us to minimise losses.”

SOFITEX, which is expecting a 225-billion-franc (441.2-million-dollar) turnover this year, announced that the price of cottonseed will increase to 210 francs (around 42 cents) a bag next year. Currently farmers pay 185 francs (about 34 cents).

The National Union of Cotton Producers of Burkina Faso supports the increases, which come on the heel of a government measure to provide three billion francs (5.9 million dollars) worth of subsidies to SOFITEX for purchasing soil additives, including fertiliser.

Farmers hope to reach their 600,000-tonne target next year by increasing yield-per-hectare from 1 to 1.3 metric tonnes. Cotton, or “white gold”, as it is known here, is the lifeblood of 2.5 million people in Burkina Faso. The crop accounts for 60 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

This year’s bumper crop makes Burkina Faso Africa’s number two cotton producer, after Mali. In the beginning of the 1990s, annual yield recorded just slightly over 110,000 tonnes.

Thanks to the heavy rains last season, cotton-producing areas also grew more than a million tonnes of cereal grain.

“Although there is unfair competition from the industrialised countries, the cotton industry in Burkina Faso remains a powerful weapon against poverty,” said Celestin Tiendrebeogo, the SOFITEX boss.

“Seeing all this effort by the producers has been tremendously rewarding. In spite of the difficulties, we feel we made the right decision in investing in SOFITEX,” said Pierre Francon, a representative of the international banking consortium.

“We supported the producers in their most difficult moments, and we are not going to abandon them when things are now improving in terms of quality and quantity,” he added.

Ninety-eight percent of all cotton produced in Burkina Faso is first quality, experts say. Like in the rest of Africa, cotton is harvested by hand in Burkina Faso.

“Burkina Faso’s economy is tied to cotton,” according to Gaspard Ouedraogo, chief executive officer of the International Bank of Burkina Faso. The bank represents the consortium which supports the cotton industry.

Burkina Faso and three other west and central African countries – Benin, Mali, and Chad – took a beating during the last World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Cancun, Mexico when they attempted to reduce, and then eliminate, the heavy subsidies that developed countries provide their cotton industries.

Since 1997, the cotton growing countries in the sub-region have been losing 150 million U.S. dollars annually. This is because the United States and European Union (EU) spend 4.7 billion dollars, between them, on subsidies to prop up their farmers every year.

China, another cotton producer, doles out 1.2 billion dollars a year to its growers.

Last week Agustin Carstens of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expressed his support for Mali’s cotton producers. He promised to lobby the industrialised nations to eliminate their agricultural subsidies.