Changing the narrative on Africa.
Africa grows plenty of cotton. It just does not make much of it into clothes. A new $5 billion plan aims to change that, turning a scattered collection of cotton producers into a regional textile industry.
In a farming settlement in southern Zambia, families use income from a drought-resilient crop to buy uniforms and books, meet college costs and put food on the table. Farmers say better seed, stronger prices and faster payments could help more rural households do the
In Gokwe, Zimbabwe’s largest growing region, investment in local processing is turning a once-overlooked seed into cooking oil, livestock feed and industrial products. The emerging industry could create jobs and retain more value but farmers want a greater share of its rewards.
Africa is beginning to reverse an age-old equation: exporting raw cotton and importing the value created from it. The challenge is to close the “missing middle,” connect regional manufacturing strengths and scale a competitive industry that keeps jobs, skills and value on the continent.
Tanzania produces more cotton than its textile industry can process, exporting most of its lint while garment factories and fashion designers import fabric. New investment could help close this industrial gap, creating manufacturing jobs and retaining more value at home.
Africa could increase its textile exports by as much as 600% and create 5.8 million jobs by processing more of its cotton locally, industry specialists say. But achieving that growth will require investment in the continent’s missing manufacturing stages – particularly spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing—along with fewer barriers to regional trade.
Cotton has helped generations of families in Uganda’s Kasese District pay for education, build homes and create new sources of income. Now farmers and agricultural officials say expanded irrigation, faster-maturing seed, affordable inputs and more transparent pricing could help the region’s experienced growers overcome erratic rainfall and unlock the crop’s next chapter.
A locally developed portable ginnery is helping Kenyan cotton farmers process their harvests closer to home, reduce losses and earn more by selling lint and seed separately. Its developers believe decentralised processing could help revive the country’s cotton industry while keeping more value and jobs in rural communities.
##A scheme tested in Uzbekistan could let African cotton farmers earn twice over, once for the fibre and once for the carbon stored in the soil beneath their fields.
As Africa seeks to capture more value from its natural resources, Ethiopia is building one of the continent’s most ambitious cotton-to-clothing value chains. By linking farmers, researchers and manufacturers, the country is demonstrating how cotton can drive industrialisation, create jobs and strengthen regional trade.