The Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco) plans to put at least 100,000 hectares under commercial cotton cultivation, with the sector poised to annually generate a minimum of $1 billion, according to managing director Pious Manamike, who recently said his company would start focussing on large estates keeping in view the climate-change issues being experienced. Manamike was speaking at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF). Large tracts of virgin land in Mashonaland Central, Kanyemba area (along the Zambezi Valley), Masvingo, and Matabeleland North in Binga area are being explored for the project, a newspaper report in the country quoted him as saying. In Zimbabwe, cotton is largely grown in Mashonaland West, the Midlands, Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central provinces while in Matabeleland North only Binga district has over the years commercially grown the crop. Over the last 50 years, Cottco has managed to produce 250,000 tonnes of the white gold using communal farmers. It is hoped that the figure will exponentially rise through the planned commercial farming programme across the country. Cotton output in the southern African country of Zimbabwe has risen by 76 per cent year-on-year to 130,000 tonnes in the 2018 marketing season. The output is the highest in nearly five years, and has been achieved due to government support under the Presidential Inputs Scheme. Under the Presidential Inputs Scheme, the government gave various free support initiatives to farmers to help them increase their cotton cultivation.
