Abstract
The private sector plays an important role in financing agricultural investments and information dissemination. In Zimbabwe, cotton is one of the major crops grown for commercial purposes by smallholder farmers. The crop is important for rural social and economic livelihoods, generating income. This resonates with sustainable development goal (SDG) number 9 target 3, which seeks to improve access of smallholder farmers to affordable credit and markets. Such is the case of the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco). This study examined the trends in cotton production, yields and Cottco’s market share for three seasons which are 2015/2016, 2016/2017 and 2017/2018. Cottco has improved cotton production from 100,000 contracted farmers who produced 10.8 thousand tonnes in 2015/2016 to 385,000 contracted farmers who produced 127 thousand tonnes in 2017/2018. Cottco has increased its market share from 37.9% in 2015/2016 season to 74.5% in 2016/2017 season and 89.3% in 2017/2018 season. The increase has been attributed to increased investment through input credit scheme to smallholder farmers who cannot finance the crop and agronomic support to ensure production. The company invested US$26 million in 2015/2016 season, US$42 million in 2016/2017 season and US$60 million in 2017/2018 season.
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Chaniwa, M. et al. (2020). Ending Poverty Through Affordable Credit to Small-Scale Cotton Farmers: The Case of the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe. In: Nhamo, G., Odularu, G., Mjimba, V. (eds) Scaling up SDGs Implementation. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33216-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33216-7_8
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