One of the pillars of our economy is badly affected. The price of cotton is falling. And, as a result, this will be felt by the Malian peasants. The price of seed cotton was set at 200 FCFA per kilogram for the 2020-2021 campaign against 275F the previous campaign. This is what emerges from the annual pricing meeting.
At the end of the annual meeting to fix cotton prices, like the sword of Damocles, the peasant world learns on national television of the fall in the price of cotton by 75 FCFA per kilogram.

“Between April 2019 and April 2020, the price of cotton fiber lost about 270 FCFA. We made our projections which give us 200 FCFA. This is the basic price that the world market offers us today”, declared the Chairman and CEO of the CMDT, Baba Berthé.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the fixing of the cotton price at 200 FCFA is taking place in a context marked by the fall in the prices of raw materials in the world linked to the COVID 19 pandemic.

For his part, the Minister of Agriculture, Baba Moulaye Haïdara, affirms that the State will ensure that all citizens benefit from the advantages announced by the government to support the difficulties we are experiencing. "Particularly for the peasants, the Supervisory Department is hard at work to find the best solutions that can lead to a very good campaign.

The government maintains its subsidy of 10 billion to cotton growers. The 10 billion will be transformed this time into bonuses, in proportion to production. On the sale price of a kilo of seed cotton, there will be a bonus of 15 FCFA. And we went on the basis of 700,000 tons that were produced this year. It goes without saying that this bonus may vary according to the pro rata of production. Each farmer who sells a certain quantity will be valued at the unit of measurement”, specifies the Minister of Agriculture. Other sources affirm that this price of 200 F could know an improvement according to the evolution of the world market.

In any case, in the rural world, the peasants claim that this news sends shivers down the spine. And that it is perceived as if the sky had just fallen on their heads. Demotivated by this announcement, we learn, several farmers have decided to abandon cotton cultivation this year, while others are considering a readjustment of their initial programming.