Ivory Coast to increase cotton to 200,000 tons
Ivory Coast has announced its intentions to boost cotton production to at least 200,000 metric tons in the current season by increasing the price paid to growers of the fibre by 26%.
Farmers will receive $0.59 per kilogramme for premium-quality cotton in the 2011-12 harvesting season, Laurent Fihox, spokesman for Intercoton, the national association of cotton growers and ginners, said. That compares with $0.47 paid in the season that ended last month, he said.
“By setting a good price for 2011-12, we are hoping to attract new producers,” Mr Fihox said.
Ivory Coast produced 174,000 tons of cotton in the 2010-11 season, 15% below initial forecasts, according to Mr Fihox.
“Production was not as good as we had hoped because of unfavourable weather,” he said. “There was too much rainfall in October and November.”
Harvesting of cotton, grown exclusively in the country’s arid north, typically peaks around November. Ivory Coast is the eighth-largest cotton producer on the African continent, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service.
