Govt attempts to revive cotton

The Swazi government is attempting to revive the production of cotton because it is a drought-resistant crop, senior officials told IRIN on Thursday. Tom Jele, head of the Swaziland Cotton Board, pointed out that the US African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) had created an impetus to revive cotton production. He said AGOA, which allowed Swazi textiles, among other exports, to enter the US market duty-free, stipulated that the raw materials for products earmarked for export "should be sourced locally or regionally, which will also help to reduce the industry's costs". Under AGOA the US has allowed African countries to import raw materials from non-AGOA countries, but this preferential status expires on 30 September. A bill introduced last November in the US Senate extended AGOA benefits until 2015, and for the next four years permitted raw materials to be imported from non-AGOA countries. Another bill, introduced to Congress in the same month, extended AGOA to 2020 and allowed "third party" fabrics for a further three years. But both pieces of legislation have stalled. According to Swaziland's Vulnerability Assessment Committee chairman, George Ndlangamandla, the Swazi government was attempting to address the US concerns that the Swazi textile industry "does not even source its raw material regionally". He added that Swazi Prime Minister Absalom Dlamini was currently in the US, where he would also spell out his government's plans to revive cotton production. As part of its efforts to resuscitate local cotton production, the Swazi government has procured the country's only ginnery, which has not been operational for the past two years. The government is attempting to get it up and running by the end of the year. "Until last year all of the raw cotton produced in Swaziland was sent to South Africa for ginning. From this year, it will be ginned locally," explained Ndlangamandla. "In the long term we hope the local textile industry will be encouraged to buy the ginned cotton from our farmers, and they will be offered a good price for their cotton, which will then encourage them to grow more cotton," he added. About 16,000 farmers were growing the crop in the 1990s. "The figure has dropped to 4,500 this year, due to drought conditions and non-availability of inputs," Jele said. The average annual production of raw cotton until 1995 was 20,000 metric tonnes. The figure plummeted to 1,200 metric tonnes in the 2002-03 season. "Cotton requires little water, unlike the sugar cane crop, which is the major cash crop in Swaziland, and hence [cotton] can be grown in the Lowveld," he added. But with irregular rainfall, farmers have been forced to abandon even cotton production. "Most of them [cotton farmers] are growing nothing, and each farmer has at least 10 people dependant on him," Jele commented. Cotton production is labour-intensive and has been providing temporary employment to 15 to 20 percent of the rural workforce in Swaziland.