Poor yield pushes growers to opt for contract farming

Mwanza. When Mr Lucas Mbelele, a 70-year-old farmer, sowed his cotton seeds for the 2015/16 farming season, he didn’t know the seeds would not grow because of poor quality.

The seeds were distributed to him by ginnery companies authorised by the Tanzania Cotton Board (TCB) to distribute quality seeds to over 300,000 cotton farmers.

“I earn Sh300,000 annually from my 2.4 hectare farm of cotton,” he says.

Mr Mbelele can generate more income from his cotton farm if the seeds distributed to him are certified and suitable for sowing.

Back at home in Ikunguliabashashi Village in Bariadi District, where he lives with his six daughters and eight grandchildren, Mr Mbelele says his harvest would have been better “if the seeds he sowed would have germinated.” Around Lake Zone villages, where 99 per cent of the country’s cotton is grown, distribution of poor cotton seeds has continued affecting production. “Poor distribution of seeds affects planting, growth and harvest,” says Mr Mbelele.

“Many cotton seeds have not germinated,” explains Mr Ayubu Mwanaminza, a farmer in Masewa Village in Bariadi in the Simiyu cotton growing region. “This has continued affecting cotton farming,” he says.

In the 2015/16 cotton season farmers have experienced many problems, one of them being poor quality of seeds after TCB confirmed that out of the 11,444 tonnes distributed to farmers, 3,000 tonnes were of poor quality and could not germinate. This is according to TCB acting director Gabriel Mwalo.

Extra 3,480 tonnes of seeds were distributed to the districts of Magu, Kwimba, Maswa, Itilima, Bariadi, Kahama, Igunga, Chato, Mbogwe and Bukombe, but were also confirmed to be unsuitable for planting,” says Mr Mwalo.

According to him, TCB has ordered the ginneries to distribute 21,380 tonnes of cotton seeds to farmers countrywide for the 2015/16 season. “Our target has not been reached because most of the seeds are of poor quality,” he says.

Despite challenges of certified cotton seeds, the quality of seeds for planting should not be compromised. “This planting season has experienced a shortage of quality seeds for the normal sowing period - that is November 15-December 30,” he says.

Cotton is one of Tanzania’s key crops. About five million of the country’s 45 million people depend on this crop for their livelihoods, yet over 300,000 smallholder farmers have seen little improvement in their lives, according to the principal ginnery inspector for Lake Zone, Mr Kisinza Shinji.

“We have to face this reality that cotton farmers have not been able to reduce poverty levels,” says Mr Mwalo.

The result is that Tanzanian cotton trades at a discount on the international market due to its poor quality and since the liberalisation of the cotton industry in the 1990s, productivity has fallen sharply.

“With yields of about 550kg per hectare, it is just over a quarter of the world average,” says Mr Innocent Keya, an agricultural officer in Mwanza Region.

One of the reasons productivity has not improved is that there has not been enough research conducted in high-yield seed varieties.

“For example, UK82 a seed variety created in 1982 was still being used in the 2000s,” he says. “There was no new level of technology in the seeds.”

In addition, there has been no system to provide credit to farmers for fertiliser.

“Without credit, farmers can’t afford fertiliser,” notes Mr Keya, adding that a survey in 2002 revealed that 50 per cent of the farmers weren’t spraying their crop even once.

Low productivity and falling global cotton prices over the past 15 years have actually made farmers poorer.

With fluctuating global prices, poor planting seeds and increasingly poor returns, Mr Mbelele has opted for growing other crops like maize and peanuts besides cotton.

TCB announced that from December 2011, a new type of contract farming would be rolled out to farmers. Contract farming was introduced by the UK-based Gatsby Charitable Foundation, which advocates direct contracts between farmers and ginneries, removing the agent from the process. Farmers’ business groups will replace agents.

“As part of the contract, the ginneries provide farmers with inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides, seeds and tractors to plough their fields to improve the amount and quality of cotton grown,” says Mr Buluma Kalindushi, the acting manager for the west region cotton growing zone.

Willing cotton farmers then engage in contract farming with ginnery companies under the Cotton Buyers and Ginneries Association (Umwapa), which in turn provides them with inputs and farming skills.

The challenge is in the implementation. “Farmers need to be organised to deal with ginners – and assisting them to coalesce into functioning groups is a huge task,” Mr Kalindushi explains, adding: “The process of allocating ginners to zones … has to be transparent and seen to be fair so that ginners will have confidence in the new system.”

The acting manager affirmed that farmers, who took part in the contract farming pilot were already seeing better yields.

According to him, Kahama, Msalala and Ushetu districts in Shinyanga Region have scaled-up cotton production under contract farming to 3,196,636kgs during this season from 3,116,303kgs of cotton produced in the previous season.