There’re lived a time when cotton was a huge industry in Malawi with massive commercial viability; but suddenly, all that attraction and viability tumbled.
Small and medium growers no longer found any motivation to continue cultivating the cash-crop after the local variety lost its resistance to bore-worms and having to need growers dig deeper into their pockets for pesticides.
Not surprising; eventually the crop had to fall-off the ladder both as a cash-crop and forex earner.
On loss of profitability Limbani Chitowe; a cotton grower since 1982 says the severity of bore-worm attacks became “a burden as farmers begun to spend much on pesticides against a shrinking profit margin.”
For Nduzayani Basikolo another farmer; in years leading to 2009 she had to quit cotton-farming as it became too expensive to sustain on pesticides which now needed frequent spraying from protection against bore-worms.
“The bore-worms had become such a menace so much so that sometimes I could spray even 16 times in one production-year … and this meant a lot of money if one was using $70 per 3 acre farm-land per round of spray,” says Basikolo.
However, it was this setback that in 2012 and 2013 triggered biotechnologists into action to breed a GMO hybrid with an inherent capability to resist bore-worms whose attacks on the sweet and juicy cotton-seed had been taking away about 60 percent of the yield in a farm if poorly sprayed and lowering the yield in turn.
Upon rigorous trials Malawi had to drift from conventional cotton variety to adopt the Genetically Engineered BT cotton varieties; as a cornerstone for the rebirth of the industry.
With the new varieties the story has seemed promising as the country has registered improved yield of 2000 KGs or more per hectare from between 500 – 800 KGs or less per hectare previously.
John Lungu managing director for Quoton Malawi Limited says, because the GMO hybrid doesn’t get attacked by bore-worms farmer have scaled-down the spray of pesticides to two or three times or even not at all depending on the insect pressure.
“However, because the GMO variety is resistant to bore-worms farmers no longer need pesticides or need it in smaller amount translating into profitable production,” says Lungu.
Professor John Bokosi on the other hand; a biotechnologist from Luanar observes the GMO cotton varieties have both helped increase productivity and income as farmers are now yielding more and also generating more income.
“It all about economies of scale. The more output farmers are having … the increased income they are getting even if prices would be low,” said Professor Bokosi.
Looking at the benefits that have come with GMO cotton as a main product of biotechnology for Malawi; moving forward Dr. Abel Sefasi another scientist from Luanar says “the turn-around in fortune presents evidence of biotech cotton being the way to go”.
Echoing the scientists Boaz Mandula, a cotton development officer with the Cotton Council of Malawi hails the biotech cotton breed for reviving the industry from the ashes.
From where the country seats; cotton having raked K8 billion this season compared to K3.6 billion realised in the 2021 season, this provides some window of a crop that can complement tobacco in whose vein the GMO cotton seems the best candidate looking at the improved yields, revenue and the export volume.