• 19 Mar, 2024
  • Margaret Kamba
  • 2523 Reads

President Mnangagwa revived the cotton industry: Mubonderi

By Margaret Kamba 


Cotton Farmers in Zimbabwe National Chairman Cde Stewart Mubonderi says His Excellency President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa resuscitated the cotton industry which had nearly collapsed.



Speaking during an interview, Cde Mubonderi said the strategies employed by the President brought back confidence to cotton farmers seeing their increased participation in the sector.


Here Cde Mubonderi shares the insights into the goings on in the cotton industry.


"The Party and Government saw the importance of the cotton farmers and decided to revive the sector by putting the Presidential Cotton Input Scheme in 2016 much to the disbelief of the cotton farmers. We had to partner with stakeholders among them Cottco, the chiefs and ZANU PF to raise awareness on the President's decision to resuscitate the industry. 


"This saw the rise in the metric tonnes grown over the years. The introduction of the United States Dollar component has been retaining the value of the hard earned cash for the cotton farmers who had previously suffered the erosion of their sweat through the RTGs.


"The cotton to clothing strategy by the President will solve the value chain issue as such companies. We expected that by now David Whitehead, Kadoma Textiles which previously employed a lot of people would be up and running.


"We must make sure that the value chain from the farmer to ginnery then refinery or clothing manufacturing is thriving so that we are able to get more value when we earn foreign currency.



"The President brought devolution to decentralize all development assets to our areas so that the GDP benefits these areas with all the by-products such as oil, soap and cake benefiting these producing areas.


"The issue of late payments is crippling the industry and disillussioning the farmers and subsequently affecting the President's programme. As we speak at least 4 million United States Dollars is still outstanding. We need to come up with a strategy of making sure that the farmer is paid on time so that the industry flourishes."