The Cotton Council of Malawi has expressed optimism that this year`s cotton market will yield positive results to the benefit of farmers unlike that of last year.  

The development follows an announcement by the Government that this year`s minimum price for cotton will be at K320 per kilogram.

According the Council`s Executive Director Cosmas Luwanda, unlike last season, this year, players in the sector have an experience on how they will deal with conditions on the market.

“I would like to provide maximum assurance somehow to the farmers because the conditions that prevailed last year and conditions that are already showing this are pretty very different.

“Last season was a very special year, nobody anticipated about the onset of Covid-19 pandemic and we had no plans in place because it was a sort of a disaster that occurred without any of us anticipating,” said Luwanda.

He added that there are expectations that there will not be so much disruptions this year on the local market in accordance market signals on the international market.

“Farmers have adequately been sensitized of what to do and what not to do, so we expect that the behavior of either party that is involved in this business is going to go according to plan.

“The lint that we are producing this season is around 21, 000 metric tons which is far much below if you compare with the demand for lint domestically that we need,” said Luwanda.

Cotton is one of the major agro-based foreign exchange earners in Malawi, However, for the past decade, cotton production in the country has been characterised by a steady decrease in production levels to as low as 10,000 metric tons in 2018/19 season.

Cotton farm gate prices have had a substantial impact on the declining production in Malawi. The global cotton price trends have a bearing on the local prices offered to farmers by ginners.