Cotton farmers in the semi-arid Yatta and Masinga Sub Counties in Machakos County are a happy lot after a local textile company purchased all their cotton produce – By KNA.
The farmers abandoned it 20 years ago due to frustrations from brokers. However, they are willing to return back to the cash crop.
“The crop has proved lucrative and we will make it the area’s cash crop to wipe out poverty in an area known to depend heavily on relief food.”
During the last one-week period, the company has bought cotton worth in excess of Sh.2 million from Ndalani area, Yattta constituency, and more cotton is in the farms nearing maturity.
The farmers lauded the government’s move to revive the cotton sector saying it has led to the reintroduction of cotton farming in drylands, thereby improving livelihoods.
In 1902, the manufacturers of cotton textiles in Britain established the British Cotton Growers Association. Its main function was to promote cotton production in British colonies wherever local conditions suited the crop.
The primary aim of cotton growing in Kenya, as in other British colonies, was to assist Britain to minimise its reliance on foreign, particularly the United States sources of cotton for her textile manufacturing industries.
Today, the old cotton ginneries like Kisumu Cotton Mills and Raymonds, now Rupa, either serve as godowns or lie in waste.
As an effort to revive the crop, President Uhuru Kenyatta through his Big Four Agenda, introduced Bt Cotton, and ordered an analysis of meaningful policies to revive the sector.
