Economy

SODECOTON signs five-year agreement to boost cotton production.

by Chi Emeh
25 Sep 2025 19:04
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The Cotton Development Corporation, SODECOTON, and the National Observatory on Climate Change, NOCC, have signed a five-year framework agreement which seeks to enhance cotton production resilience to climate change.
The agreement was signed by both institutions on September 16. It aims to tackle constraints faced by SODECOTON through NOCC technical support and adaptive activities.

SODECOTON said cotton which is a key cash crop in the country, suffers particularly from water stress, poor germination due to irregular rainfall, flower and capsule abortion caused by high temperatures.

The company said the crop also suffers from increased proliferation of pests affecting the quality of the crop.

“It is because of these observations that the necessity to respond to these issues represents a very strong constraint for SODECOTON, which seeks NOCC's technical support to better adapt its activities hence the signing of this framework cooperation agreement between the two institutions,” SODECOTON explained.

The agreement outlines several cooperation areas which include climate monitoring and climatological service production, economic cost assessment of disruptions, greening SODECOTON'S activities, data exchange, and producer awareness. Both parties also intend to mobilise funding to implement planned actions.

According to NOCC, the last three decades have witnessed a continuous decline in rainfall, prolonged dry seasons, and an increase in extreme events such as droughts and floods.

It said in Cameroon, rising temperatures, decreasing rainfall, and irregular rainy seasons severely weaken agriculture. It added that the disruptions directly affect the cotton sector, an economic pillar of the country.

In 2024, recorded losses in the Far North Region reached nearly 13.8 billion FCFA for cotton and 8.8 billion FCFA for onions, according to data cited by SODECOTON.

According to the Disaster Risk Financing Strategy published by the Ministry of Finance, MINFI, floods and droughts annually cause direct economic losses in Cameroon, estimated at nearly140 billion FCFA.

The data said floods alone generate an average of 74.7 to 115 billion FCFA in annual losses stating that almost 90% of these losses affect the housing, transport, production, and services sectors, while only 10% impact agriculture.

Between 2019 and 2024, natural disasters destroyed some 49,450 hectares of crops, increasing the vulnerability of rural households already heavily dependent on agriculture.

SODECOTON, the main actor in the countries cotton sector, annually produces over 300,000 tonnes of cotton-seed directly or indirectly supporting nearly 2 million people in the North and Far North.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3573 of Tuesday September 23, 2025