The government has set aside Sh1.5 billion in the 2019/20 fiscal year to subsidise the textile sector to help cotton farmers produce at least 300,000 bales per annum by 2021.
Agriculture secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri said the government was keen on competing with her East Africa counterparts in cotton harvests, noting currently local farmers fair poorly at 20,000 bales annually compared to Tanzania’s 700,000 and Uganda’s 200,000 bales per annum.
He said cotton farming had the ability to engage at least 1.3 million local farmers in 22 counties, in the process creating wealth for both devolved and national governments, “reason why farming alone will enjoy Sh300 million of this budget”.
A further Sh700 million will be used to subsidise related industrial investments with the balance going to employment of extension officers to midwife the rebirth of the cotton sector.
In the 1990s, Bretton Woods institutions forced the Sub-Saharan Africa under the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) to free their markets to international competition, leading to the collapse of cotton industry in the country as more of used clothes flooded the country and won acceptance.
This saw local textile industry lose customers for ready-made clothes leading to a performance drop of over 80 per cent.
“This is what we now seek to address under the industrialisation agenda. We must first get the raw material supply chain right. This will be done by raising acreage under cotton production from the current 13,000 a hectare to a minimum of 100,000 … We can produce even 500,000 bales of cotton per annum but the current projection is to hit 300,000 by 2021,” Mr Kiunjuri said.
He added that the recent revival of the Rift Valley Textiles (Rivatex) had created a ready market for 100,000 bales and with expanded performance, could increase the demand to 150,000 bales.
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