World Cotton Day reminds Zimbabwe of the need to revive the falling cotton industry

Douglas Masveta

October 23, 2025

2 min read

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By Caleb Chikwawawa

The World Cotton day commemorations held in Harare this Thursday has seen Zimbabweans highlighting the need to bring back a thriving Cotton industry as it had been on a downward trajectory

Giving a keynote speech at the commemorations, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries Water and Rural Development Permanent Secretary Prof Obert Jiri said that there is need to increase the production of Cotton as previous years indicate low production which affected Zimbabwe's textile industry.

"Off course as we look forward, we must increase cotton production

"The last few years have seen us not doing so well in terms of cotton. We were at our lowest thirteen thousand metric tonnes in 2024 and last year we were on twenty-eight thousand metric tonnes. Off course this has weekend our textile industry and increased our reliance on imports.

"We must turn the graph up. We must be able to produce our cotton. At some point we were producing 350 000 metric tonnes of cotton produced in this country.

"Now with all these bright minds, all these people that now know fashion, with all the technology we have we must be able to increase our cotton production.

The Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (COTTCO) board chairperson Sifelani Jabangwe said that climate change, regulatory issues and contracting issues were some of the challenges that affected the cotton industry.

"We obviously had challenges over the years, which are some of things that we need to look at as we gather like we have today with all the stakeholders.

"Over the years we have experienced a reduction in volumes and the yields due to climate change issues, policy regulatory issues, farmer issues, contractor issues and so forth. These are issues within the control of partners in this room so we can solve these issues and grow the sector.

"We need to use opportunities such as this to identify and set actions for improvement for the sector," said Jabangwe