Cotton is one of Tanzania's key crops. Around 99 per cent of the country’s cotton is grown in the western region. Around two million of the country’s 42 million people depend on it for their livelihood. It provides around 13 per cent of the country’s foreign exchange – second only to coffee in agricultural exports.

Poverty level among cotton farmers is high despite the crop being expected to improve their livelihoods, The deficiencies of the cotton industry are bound up with the poverty of the farmers. With no savings, and paltry and uncertain returns, they cannot afford pesticides and fertilisers to improve the quality of their cotton.

The result is that Tanzanian cotton trades at a discount on the international market due to its lower quality. And since the liberalisation of the cotton industry in the 1990s, productivity has fallen sharply, with yields just over a quarter of the world average.

One of the reasons productivity has not improved is that there has not been enough research into high-yield seed varieties. In addition, there has been no system to provide credit to farmers for fertiliser. Without credit, farmers can't afford fertilizer. There are farmers who haven’t even sprayed their crop once.