Organization and Performance of Cotton Sectors in Africa ... - infoDev

own their own animals and plows can prepare their land as soon as the rainsbegin, thus permitting timely planting (a prerequisite for good yields) and thecultivation of larger areas of land. Larger producers also tend to have family laboror the working capital to hire labor in a timely fashion. The poorest farmers areoften caught in a food insecurity trap, which causes them to hire out their laborfor immediate cash income instead of working on their cotton plots.SummaryYield levels and trends at regional and country levels are correlated with cottonsector organization. The national monopoly systems established in the Francophonecountries of WCA delivered impressive and sustained yield growthover a period of three decades, from very low yields in the 1950s to well abovethe world rainfed average yield in the 1980s (around 1,200 to 1,400 kg/ha ofseed cotton). This achievement was due to a reliable system for varietal development,input supply and credit, quality extension services, and logisticalorganization provided by the cotton companies. Since the mid-1980s, thistrend has not been sustained and the productivity gap has started to widen.The system has not demonstrated a capacity to adapt to changing technical andeconomic circumstances, particularly with regard to making improved technicalpackages available to farmers.In ESA countries, the trend has been slow but steady increases in yields froma low base, based on low input–low output production systems, reaching abouthalf the world average for rainfed cotton today. Variation in yield performanceamong ESA countries is also correlated with sector organization. Yields arehigher in the more concentrated systems (Zambia and Zimbabwe) than in themore competitive models (Tanzania and Uganda), which have found it verydifficult to provide the services farmers need to raise their yields (figure 10.3).RETURNS TO FARMERSThe evolution and typology of cotton sectors presented in chapter 4 gives riseto an important question given the study objectives: from which type of systemdo farmers consistently benefit more? Is it a competitive system that pays thema higher share of world lint prices but is less effective at delivering support servicesthat help them raise yields? Or is it a more coordinated sector that deliversreasonable support services but a lower share of the world price? A corollaryquestion is whether some types of farmers do better under one system and othersunder another. Because farmer welfare depends on several factors andbecause no one sector is expected to perform best on all these factors, the typologydelivers no clear direction on how farmers will fare under different sectortypes. Yet answers to these questions are crucial to informing the design ofreforms that improve competitiveness and accelerate poverty reduction.122 POULTON, LABASTE, AND BOUGHTON