Ivory Coast Government Says Cotton Harvest to Rise 69% to 400,000 MT

The Ivory Coast government says its cotton harvest for the 2023-24 season will increase by 69% from last season.

“This year, the cotton industry expects 400,000 metric tons of cotton seed for a surface area of 400,000 hectares on the basis of an average yield of one ton per hectare,” Minister of Agriculture Kouassi Kobenan Adjoumani said Thursday on the country’s state-run Radiodiffusion-Télévision Ivoirienne.

Production would be up 69% compared to the 2022-2023 season, he said.

The government also cut prices paid for fertilizer, Adjoumani said.

The move is key to reviving the country’s cotton industry, which was hit by a parasite infestation that cut the 2022-23 crop by almost 53% when production fell to 269,000 metric tons, according to government and industry figures.

Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/