Malawi Cotton Company 'not for profit'
Chinese-owned Malawi Cotton Company (MCC) has said that its core interest is not to make more profit for itself but rather to make cotton production more profitable to the common Malawian farmer and the Malawi government in the process.
Assistant manager of MCC Xin Jia said that the company generated over $20 million into the southern African country during the 2010/2011 growing season, expressing his optimism on the future of cotton as the country’s foreign exchange earner.
Mr Xin said MCC is making serious investments in cotton industry to support the Malawi government’s cotton up-scaling initiative aimed at promoting the production of the crop as a forex earner. “Malawi Cotton Company is growing by the season despite the high purchasing price of seed cotton and low selling price of the lint,” he said.
Xin said MCC is working tirelessly with the farmers in all the cotton growing districts of the country to ensure that the required quality of cotton is achieved.
“Unlike other cotton ginners in the country who employ field staff during the buying season only, we have over 350 field staff working on permanent basis with our farmers throughout the country. These officers teach the farmers field management and they also oversee the distribution of farm inputs such as seed, fertilizer and chemicals which we supply to our farmers on loan. For the country to achieve the required level of production, farmers ought to adopt new farming technologies, crop and field management and this is exactly what we are equipping our farmers with,” said the MCC assistant manager.
