Cameroon raises cotton price to curb smuggling

In an effort to deter cotton growers from smuggling their harvested crop to neighbouring Nigeria, Cameroon’ state firm SODECOTTON has raised its procurement price of raw cotton from last season’s 200 CFA francs per kg to 255 CFA francs (US$ 0.5) per kg, a rise of 27.5 percent.

SODECOTTON said the move is aimed at discouraging illegal export of raw cotton to bordering Nigeria in expectation of higher returns there.

It said Cameroon farmers illegally exported around 16 percent of their last season’s total production to Nigeria, where they reaped almost double the prices for their produce as compared to domestic market.

The state firm pre-finances the farmers’ by providing them fertilizers, seedlings and other inputs. In exchange, the farmers enter into a contract for selling their produce to the firm.

However, the farmers breached this agreement and preferred to illegally ship out their produce to Nigeria in expectation of better returns, which caused SODECOTTON to incur a loss of around 24 billion CFA francs (US$ 47.37 million) this year.

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