Uganda cotton output to double on peace

Cotton production in Uganda may more than double in the 2010-11 season following an end to conflict in the main growing region and on increased support for farmers, Agriculture Minister Hope Mwesigye said.

Output in the 12 months through September 2011 may rise to 200,000 185-kilogram (410-pound) bales, from 70,000 bales in 2009-10, she said in an interview today in the capital, Kampala.

Production last season fell from 125,000 bales in 2008-09 after a drought cut yields, the ministry has said. The government has since increased the amount of cotton seed distributed to farmers in northern Uganda, which has been relatively peaceful since rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army fled to the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo in 2005 following a government offensive.

"The return of peace is a blessing to the cotton sector since it is the main growing region,” Mwesigye said. While farmers in the region rarely use fertilizer, an agreement with India for chemicals may boost its use, she said.

Most of the 1.8 million displaced persons in northern Uganda have been resettled in their homes and the remaining 250,000 will leave camps by the first half of next year, according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Uganda’s government will allocate 5.7 billion Ugandan shillings ($2.5 million) to provide seedlings and pesticides to the industry in the year through June 2011, the Ministry of Agriculture said on May 19.

Uganda grows the long-fiber variety of cotton and reaps its crop from November to April. Output of the fiber has declined from 500,000 bales in 1971-72 because of political turmoil in the 1970s until the mid-1980s.