Cotton farmers need new technologies

Farmers and agricultural experts inspect a crop in a cotton farm. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • Tanzanian farmers must do away with the hand-hoe if they are to improve productivity in their activities - and reap more benefits from agriculture

Dar es Salaam. Cotton production in Tanzania is generally hampered by assorted challenges that include continued use of the traditional hand-hoe by about 70 percent of the farmers almost 60 years after the country gained independence.

Another major challenge is continued reliance on rain-fed agriculture by about 100 percent, instead of adopting and adapting to irrigation farming.

It is because of the foregoing that a research study was conducted recently with a view to improving cotton productivity – and, therefore, actual production and profitability – using proven Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs).

Among other things, the study found that, while it costs about Sh487,500 per hectare to produce cotton without applying improved technologies, it cost Sh840,000 per hectare when improved farming technologies and other good agriculture practices were applied.

On the other hand, the income garnered from using the first farming method was Sh637,500 per hectare. However, this shot up dramatically to Sh1.2 million per hectare when the second method involving the use of improved technologies and other GAPs.

The research was funded by the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (Costech), and was conducted by a researcher from the Tanzania Agricultural Research institute (Tari), Everina Lukonge, in Ukiriguru, Ilonga, Mikocheni and the University of Dar es salaam (UDSM).

According to Ms Lukonge, other factors which hamper cotton productivity in the country are vagaries of the weather; limited provision of agricultural extension services, fertilizers and pesticides; poor or zero-application of good practices, as well as poor knowledge of cost-and-benefit analyses.

“Cotton supports the livelihood of about 18 million Tanzanian per hectare,” she said – adding that cotton is produced in 17 of the 26 administrative regions in Mainland Tanzania.

Cotton-growing areas in the west of the country include Shinyanga, Simiyu, Mwanza, Mara, Geita, Tabora, and Singida, all of which produce 97-99 percent of the nation’s total cotton crop.

Other cotton-producing regions are Manyara, Morogoro, Coast, Tanga and Iringa, all of which produce 1 to 3 percent of the total cotton crop in Tanzania.

The importance of cotton and its by-products include lint for making textiles, cottonseed oil, and cottonseed cake, as well as soap manufacturing.

There are two varieties of cotton seeds – UK171 and UK173 –whose cotton yields increased by more than 10 percent over and above the commercial variety, UKM08.

However, the Tari official said that, despite having good varieties of cotton seeds designed to improve production, the institute also conducts training courses on budgeting for farmers and extension officers.

According to her, the institute has already trained some 360 extension staff and 1,800 farmers in the Western and Eastern cotton regions on Integrated Pest Management (IPM), farm business and entrepreneurship skills.

“The ginning outturn was high: above 40 percent, ranging from 42.7 to 44.9 percent,” she said.

Following the training courses, she said, a majority of cotton farmers were now using the farm business knowledge that they obtained from the training. For example, they now keep records of their cotton production costs and profit separately from those of other crops.

According to Ms Lukonge, farmers were able to use the lessons learnt regarding records keeping

“Farming cotton lines were the best on adaptability, yield, disease and insect/pest resistance, and fibre quality characters,” she explained – adding that “farmers and extension staff are now able to identify and control cotton diseases, including especially ‘Fusarium wilt,’ bacterial disease and insect pests like bollworms, cotton leafhopper jassids and aphids using cultural practices, botanicals, insecticides and other improved technologies.

“The farmers who were involved in the project implementation from the Eastern cotton-farming regions now apply fertilizer in cotton production as a matter of course,” she said.

“With improved technologies, the gains were Sh573,750 per hectare of cotton crop, compared with the traditional way of farming. Also, it is possible to further increase the income by stressing the use of Good Agricultural Practices suitably adapted to cotton production,” she said.

From the training conducted for farmers, extension staff and other cotton communities in the covered villages, farmers were able to harvest at least 1,200kg of cotton crop per hectare.

Therefore, she said, using improved technologies has resulted in phenomenal success, as cotton farmers are clearly benefiting from the increases in seed cotton yields by using fertilizers – and reduced use of chemicals by using IPM techniques, she marvelled.