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Elton Manguwo

THE Zimbabwe Cotton Company (Cottco) has paid 96 percent of the money owed to farmers through delayed payments for their produce in a move expected to boost farmers’ confidence to produce the crop.

Cottco acting chief accounting officer Mr Munyaradzi Chikasha recently revealed that the company had managed to pay off 96 percent of money owed to farmers for the total crop that was delivered to the company in the last two seasons.

The Government has made it a priority to ensure top industry buyers for various crops are able to honour their payments to farmers in time to guarantee continued production of strategic crops.

“The outstanding balance is expected to be settled in the next two weeks,” said Mr Chikasha applauding farmers for bearing with Cottco despite the late payments.

For the just ended cotton marketing season farmers were paid 75 percent of the total amount in foreign currency to enable them to store value in the face of a high inflationary environment that gripped the nation at the time of marketing.

“I would like to thank the Government for supporting the push for farmers to be paid 75 percent of their earnings in foreign currency at the time of sale,” said Mr Chikasha.

He further applauded farmers for standing firm despite facing a difficult season that was characterised by these erratic rains adding that the Government was promising to pay the farmers timeously next marketing season.

“Some areas did not receive enough rains while most farmers experienced erratic rains in the country, which resulted in low yields of 46, 5 million kilogrammes recorded in the season 2021/2022,” said Mr Chikasha.

He challenged farmers to desist from abusing inputs by selling components like fertiliser and chemicals saying that would affect productivity as the nation aims to improve cotton production.

Mr Chikasha added: “It is better for farmers to use the fertilisers provided under the inputs scheme properly so that they can earn good incomes when they sell their produce rather than sell fertilisers cheaply to unscrupulous buyers.”

Recently, Mr Chikasha announced inputs under the free Presidential Inputs Scheme were not for resale and urged the general public to report beneficiaries who would have been found selling inputs by contacting and/or WhatsApp Cottco on 0716164893 or e-mail  [email protected] or better still call Cottco head office on (0242)771981/5.”