Climate of Our Future

Climate Crisis Coalition

Plight of African Cotton Farmers Getting Worse
By John Zodzi, Reuters, August 15, 2007
“Known as ‘white gold’ to peasant farmers whose living depends on it, cotton has long been one of the few cash crops they can cultivate without irrigation across West Africa’s arid Sahel, bringing much-needed funds into poor villages. But these days farmers complain the rains don’t last long enough to grow a full crop. ‘We will have to adapt to these climatic conditions if they stay like this with time,’ Messan Ewovor, director general of Togo’s cotton company Sotoco, told Reuters during an industry workshop convened in Togo last week to address the problem. It isn’t so much the volume of rain — torrential downpours have caused flash flooding across much of West Africa in recent weeks, sweeping away villages and transforming hitherto dry river beds into raging torrents. The real problem is the rainy season, during which crops are traditionally grown, is getting shorter. Fears among some industry players at last week’s conference that the growing season is shrinking from six months to as little as three may well prove alarmist, but experts are increasingly accepting climate change in the region as a fact.”