Tender cotton leaves sprout beneath the neat rows of hardy maize on Paul Ouma Liech’s farm, struggling for space in the undergrowth.
Liech has grown cotton for seven years but is loath to dedicate his small plot of land to a commodity that has suffered a rapid decline since free market reforms opened Kenya to cheaper cotton and textile imports in the 1990s.
“The maize provides food that allows me to work on the cotton crop. If I grew cotton alone, I would die of hunger,” said the 45-year-old, who hopes to make between $110-125 profit at the end of the season.
Kenya’s cotton industry is beset by many of the problems facing African producer nations, who are struggling for a better deal for their exports in the Doha round of world trade talks.
Cotton producers Chad, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal have complained that U.S. subsidies are depressing world prices and ruining their economies. They have sought for several years to give cotton a special status in the Doha round.
No longer a booming industry
Once one of Kenya’s top foreign exchange earners, the cotton and textile sector provided jobs for more than 100,000 people before liberalization in 1992 drove prices lower and depressed demand as trade in second-hand clothes grew.
In its heyday in the late 1980s, there were 24 ginning plants, serving 52 textile firms and 110 large-scale garment manufacturers and spinners.
Most mills are now closed and the industry is operating at less than 20 percent capacity, according to some researchers, who say production has dropped below 10,000 bales a year, from 70,000.
The government announced a $3.3 million cash injection last year to develop the sector so that Kenya’s textiles would continue to benefit from a trade deal with the United States.
But small-scale growers like Liech show the challenges of reviving a sector hit by mismanagement, fluctuating prices and competition from other African and Asian producers.
Exploitation
Stripped to the waist, his shiny polyester trousers held up by a large belt, Liech says he would grow more cotton if subsidies were available for fertilizer, seeds and pesticide.
The crop, he says, is only profitable when it is planted among the maize, millet, ground nut and green peas.
At between $0.20-0.25 per 2.2 pounds, cotton fetches similar prices to maize or millet, but Liech complains of exploitation by ginners who buy the cotton to spin into yarn.
“These people drive around in fancy cars yet they do not farm, while us farmers walk around in tattered clothes,” he said. “The ginners are stealing from us.”
Although African producers often blame U.S. subsidies for their woes, others say there are also domestic obstacles.
The assistant U.S. trade representative for Africa, Florizelle Liser, said this month that African producers would struggle to compete with growers in Latin America and Asia if the United States eliminated subsidies.
Low production yields, lack of proper irrigation and poor ginning systems hampered Africa’s ability to compete, she said.
The industry’s problems in Kenya mean the country is failing to benefit thoroughly from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which gives clothing exports from 37 African countries duty-free access to the $11 trillion U.S. market.
And its plight could become worse as a key provision allowing African nations to ship clothing made from fabric and yarn from cheaper third countries, such as India and China, is due to expire in September 2007.
“In most of our countries, if you remove that provision, three-quarters of our manufacturers under AGOA will collapse,” said Kenya’s Trade and Industry Minister Mukhisa Kituyi.
Scratching the surface
The answer is simply to reactivate the ginning plants and mills by growing more cotton, says Joseph Orlale, chairman of the National Cotton Stakeholders’ Forum. His dream is to see the fertile land of western Kenya converted to fields of cotton.
“The government talks of a potential of 300,000 hectares, but we’re scratching the surface,” he said. “People are sitting and telling me we’re a poor country. We’re not poor. We’re just closing our eyes to opportunities.”
Local district agricultural officer Seraphine Atambo said the government could provide few incentives to switch to cotton, other than funds to buy seeds, fertilizer and pesticides.
“We’re not saying we’re going to do some magic on cotton — the government cannot subsidize or fix prices,” she said.
“We cannot really help our farmers. The world regulations that came upon this nation were too harsh,” she said, referring to the liberalization of the 1990s.
Far from the debate about how the industry can be improved and from wider discussions in world capitals about making global trade fairer, Liech is left to deal with a more immediate concern, an unknown bug gnawing through his cotton leaves.