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Edgar Vhera

Agriculture Specialist Writer

REGISTRATION of cotton contractors ended yesterday with the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) saying it was still receiving submissions from other prospective sponsors for the upcoming summer season by the time of going to press.

AMA director agribusiness Mr Jonathan Mukuruba yesterday said they were hoping that all the contractors would have submitted their papers by end of day.

“We had a meeting with contractors last week and they promised to register before the deadline day. Will know by end of September how many will have registered,” he said.

Statutory Instrument (SI) 63 of 2011, [Agricultural Marketing Authority (Seed Cotton and Seed Cotton Products) Regulations] reads: “Every contractor association, buyers association or ginners association shall before acting in any such capacity, register with the committee by completing and submitting to the Committee Farm AMA (cotton) 3, Form AMA (Cotton) 5B or Form AMA (Cotton) 5C respectively together with the appropriate fee.”

Registration for the oncoming cotton season should be on or before September 30.

Cotton Ginners Association (CGA) chairman, Mr Jonas Chindanya concurred saying their members were aware of the deadline and would have registered by yesterday.

“Our members will register on time to allow the distribution of inputs to growers. We expect AMA clerks to be at common inputs distribution points for inputs distribution to start early,” the CGA chair said.

In the 2023/24 season, AMA registered eight contractors namely – Agri-Value Chain, Cottco, Innovative Cotton, Southern Cotton Company, ShawashAgri, Zimbabwe Cotton Consortium, Alliance Ginneries and New Cotton Company Holdings (NCCH).

Statistics from AMA show that at the time of marketing only five contractors were buying seed cotton with NCCH, Innovative Cotton and ShawashAgri not purchasing anything.

Meanwhile, some farmers have indicated that they have not yet received their money as well as grade-based price differentials for the 2022/23 season’s seed cotton crop.

Cotton Producers and Marketers Association (CPMA) chairman, Mr Stewart Mubonderi said the payment modalities for the 2024 marketing season were good but was worried that some farmers had not been paid their money and the grade-based price differential for the 2022/23 season’s crop.

In a post-cabinet media briefing early this year, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Dr Jenfan Muswere said: “Cabinet advises that the 2024 cotton marketing season will be from June 1 to 30, 2024. Farmers will receive 75 percent of their payments in US$ and 25 percent in ZiG. All outstanding payments by the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco) amounting to US$2, 65 million and ZiG2, 8 million will be cleared by May 31, 2024. The grade-based pricing system will be announced once on-going consultations are concluded.”

Efforts to get a comment from Cottco on outstanding payments to farmers were fruitless by time of going to press.