Reduced cotton production will cause the Malawi cotton industry to lose US$1.0 billion
According to Malawi’s “Daily Times”, because farmers cannot obtain genetically modified cotton seeds and have to use low-yield cotton seeds, Malawi’s cotton output value is expected to lose 14 billion Kwacha (about 90 million U.S. dollars) in 2011. .
The Malawi Farmers Federation held a “Biotechnology Policy Conference” in the capital Lilongwe last week to promote genetically modified planting technology to Malawian farmers. The current yield of Malawi’s cotton fields is about 800 kilograms per hectare. With the application of new varieties, the yield is expected to increase to 4,000 kilograms per hectare. According to the current cotton price of 120 kwacha (about 0.8 US dollars) per kilogram, if Malawi produces 60,000 tons of cotton annually, sales revenue can reach 7 billion kwacha (about 50 million US dollars).
Currently, genetically modified agricultural products are sold in major markets in Malawi, but they are all imported products. Malonga, Malawi’s Minister of Energy, Minerals and Environment, expressed dissatisfaction with the delay in the adoption of new cotton seeds and said that various ministries and commissions should increase coordination to ensure that farmers have early access to new cotton seeds and technologies. The person in charge of Malawi’s Banda Agricultural College said that the school has mastered genetically modified technology and applied to the Malawi Biosafety Supervisory Committee for field trials in 2009, but has not been approved so far.
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