BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali's cotton harvest is expected to drop 75% this year, to 176,200 tonnes from 700,000 tonnes last year, because of a pandemic-induced price slump that forced farmers to plant less crop, the cotton producers' association said on Wednesday.
"It's a very bad campaign, the expected production is only 176,200 T. You have to go back to the 1980s to see such production" said Raymond Dansokho, coordinator of the producers association.
He added that the output could be worse due to recent floods in the region.
Mali, one of the four top cotton producers in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside Chad, Benin and Burkina Faso, had expected 2020/21 output at 820,000 tonnes at the start of the season versus 700,000 tonnes last season.
The forecast was revised down to 400,000 tonnes in July after the government cut farmgate cotton prices by 27% to 200 franc CFA ($0.3604) per kilogramme compared with the previous year after global cotton prices slumped due to the pandemic.
It also removed some farm subsidies which led to a 67%increase in the cost of fertiliser
Although the government later reversed some it its decisions, including increasing farmgate prices to 250 franc CFA per kilogramme, most farmers had already decided to ditch cotton and plant other crops such as maize, the association said. ($1 = 555.0000 CFA francs)
(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Edward McAllister and Bate Felix, Editing by Louise Heavens)