Cameroon’s Cotton Farms Closing on Rising Input Costs

By Pius Lukong
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Cotton farmers in Cameroon are being forced out of business by rising input costs, according to Iya Mohammed, general manager of Sodecoton, the state-owned cotton company.
A 40 percent rise in the cost of fertilizer during the past three years has resulted in the number of cotton producers falling by about 35 percent, he said by phone from Garoua, in northern Cameroon, on April 11. Production this year is therefore expected to fall to about 150,000 metric tons, half the quantity that was produced in 2007, he said.
Cotton, mostly grown by about 227,500 small-scale farmers in the north of the country, is Cameroon’s fifth-largest foreign exchange earner.
Subsidies to producers in richer nations have depressed global prices, threatening the livelihood of millions of people in developing countries, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Sodecoton is 59 percent-owned by the government, while the rest is held by the Compagnie Francaise de Developement du Textile.

                               喀麦隆棉花农场被迫关闭
      4月14日（彭博） -由于投入成本增加  ，喀麦隆的棉农们被迫关闭工厂  ，喀麦隆棉花开发公司(Sodecoton) 是一家棉花国有企业  ，该公司总经理穆罕默德在接受采访时说 。
      在过去的三年中  ，肥料成本已经增加40%  ，导致棉花生产者数量下降了35%  ，他于4月11日在加鲁阿  ，喀麦隆北部地区接受电话采访时说 。因此今年的产量预计将下降约15万吨  ，其中一半的产量是2007年生产的  ，他说 。
      棉花  ，主要是该国北部约22.75万小规模经营的农民种植  ，是喀麦隆第五大外汇收入来源 。
      根据国际货币基金的报告  ，富裕国家的生产补贴金压低了价格  ，威胁发展中国家亿万人民的生计 。
      Sodecoton有59%的股份属于政府拥有  ，余下的股份则属于法国纺织发展集团 。