Due to drought, cotton growers and buyers in Tanzania’s lake zone would suffer substantial losses this year. The drought has affected the production of the cast crop greatly. Acute shortage of seed cotton has put almost all cotton ginners’ business in crisis and the hardest hit are cotton buyers who snubbed the contract farming system.

Serapion Rujuguru, Head of Agriculture Department in Bunda District Council feels cotton buyers are jostling for whatever little produce is available. Besides the bad weather, the collapse of contract farming has had a negative impact on cotton production in the district. Farmers say this is the worst year they have seen since they started growing cotton. While they normally harvested 1,270 kg of seed cotton per acre on an average, they managed only 900 kg from three acres this season. Experts blame the problem on collapse of contract farming, saying that though drought took its toll on production, unreliable access to farming inputs had exacerbated the problem.