Cotton and Hemp

Article 95 records South Africa’s cotton gross value of production at only around R242 million in 2011/12, a sector held back by world prices depressed by subsidies to growers in rich countries. Article 98 describes hemp as a crop waiting for the law to catch up.

Zimbabwe’s seed cotton output rose 33% to 38,500 tonnes in 2025/26, and national intake reached 28.7 million kilograms by 19 August 2026, with Cottco holding a 42% share. Zimbabwe’s peak was over 350,000 tonnes in the 2010/11 season. Zambia has a contract-based smallholder cotton sector. Zambia produces about 55,000 tonnes of raw cotton a year and exported US$25 million of it in 2022. Botswana now licenses industrial cannabis with a THC ceiling of 0.7%, with two licensed companies running pilots in 2026, and Namibia has no gin of its own, so its seed cotton is ginned in South Africa.

Seed cotton is bought by ginners, usually under contract, at a price per kilogram by grade. Zimbabwe set 2026 minimum seed cotton prices of US$0.43 a kilogram for Grade A, US$0.41 for Grade B, US$0.38 for Grade C and US$0.35 for Grade D, and all contractors paid a uniform US$0.35 during the 2026 season. Prices follow the world lint price and the exchange rate.

Cotton lint from the region is mostly exported to Asian spinning mills. Article 96 calls the export of raw lint a leak, because the spinning, weaving and garment jobs happen elsewhere. Article 97 shows how South Africa’s textile industry shrank under import competition, reducing local demand for lint.

Contractors supply seed and inputs on credit, farmers grow and pick, ginners separate lint from seed, and lint goes to spinners while seed goes to oil expressers. Article 106 shows that cottonseed oil and cake can keep a farm solvent in a bad lint year. For a smallholder, the buyer is almost always the contractor who supplied the inputs.

Contract terms decide access: the farmer must sell to the contractor that financed the crop, and side-selling breaches the contract. Grading rewards clean, dry, uncontaminated cotton. Pests such as bollworm demand regular spraying. Hemp requires a licence and is governed by rules on the plant’s THC content, which differ by country and are changing.

Real minimum capital. Modest: seed, fertiliser and pesticides are usually supplied on credit by the contractor; the main cost is labour for weeding, spraying and hand-picking.

Input choke points. A contract with a reputable ginner, timely input delivery and labour at picking.

Offtake options. The contracting ginner; in Zimbabwe, Cottco and private contractors.

Who to call. In Zimbabwe, the Agricultural Marketing Authority and cotton contractors. In Zambia, cotton ginners and the cotton regulator. For hemp, the national licensing authority.

The verdict for a small holding. Contract cotton is a low-capital, low-margin crop suited to dry areas where little else pays, best grown as part of a rotation. At US$0.35 a kilogram the student must check carefully that yield covers labour. Hemp is a licence-first opportunity to watch rather than to plant.

Cotton is planted with the rains from November to December and grows for five to six months. It is picked over several weeks as the bolls open, from April to July, and delivered as seed cotton to the ginner, who usually supplied the seed and inputs on credit and deducts that loan from the payment. Hemp is a shorter crop, harvested for fibre in about three to four months, and grown only under licence.

Seed cotton is two products. Ginning separates the lint, about 35 to 40% of the weight, which goes to the spinners, from the seed, about 55 to 60%. The seed is pressed for cooking oil and the cake left over is a protein feed for cattle; the short fibres left on the seed, the linters, go to paper and industrial uses. The ginner earns on all of them, which is why the gin is where most of the value sits.

Seed cotton is graded at the buying point, usually into grades A, B and C by cleanliness and colour, and paid accordingly. After ginning, lint is graded by colour, trash, staple length, micronaire and strength, measured by instruments. Clean picking, free of leaves, plastic and dirt, keeps the crop in the top grade.

Origin and IP. Genetically modified cotton seed carries patented traits licensed by the seed company; it is bought under licence and not saved.

Cotton has more insect pests than most crops, and the spray programme decides the yield. This is the owner's checklist, not the science: enough to protect the investment and supervise the expert.

• Bollworms. Scout weekly and spray at the threshold.
• Jassids and aphids. Control them early; aphid honeydew makes the lint sticky and downgrades it.
• Cotton stainers. Spray before the bolls open.
• Red spider mite. Scout in hot, dry weather.

When to call the expert. Call the agronomist or the contractor's field officer when bolls drop or leaves curl and redden.

These are the specialists a cotton and hemp business needs as it grows. You do not need to do their work; you need to know who they are, when to bring them in and what to expect from them. Module C11 teaches how to recruit, contract and manage them.

Build the cotton budget in T-M15-01 Enterprise Budget using the contractor’s price and input deductions, and check that the yield covers labour at the minimum price. Test small-scale processing of seed into oil and cake in T-M15-02 Processing Margin, and compare prices in T-M15-03.

Calculators: T-M15-01 Enterprise Budget, T-M15-02 Processing Margin, T-M15-03 Market Price Comparator.

Library sources: LIB-A095, LIB-A096, LIB-A097, LIB-A098, LIB-A106; LIB-P-Cotton, LIB-P-Cotton-IP, LIB-P-Hemp; LIB-C-ZW-CottonHemp, LIB-C-ZM-CottonHemp, LIB-C-BW-CottonHemp, LIB-C-NA-CottonHemp.