Organic cotton earns profits for southern Khrygis farmers

16 Feb '06

2 min read

Organic farming is gaining grounds in southern Kyrgyzstan as many cotton growers have turned to new method of farming.

Earlier, only few farmers were willing to adopt this method due to high risk of failure. During the first year, sharp decline in cotton yield was noted and this badly hit the farmers with economically in the year 2003.

But in the second year, farmers could see good results as the yield rate improved.

Now, the number of farmers using this method has risen six times since the program started in 2003.

Success of this method is attributed to the fact that organic farming stresses on sustainable management of natural resources and farmers do not have to rely on mineral fertilizers, harmful synthetic pesticides or genetically modified crops.

Farmers perceive this to be a good method as it fetches good money by selling cotton at higher prices that is reaped at lower costs.

Besides, absence of chemicals reduces the health and environmental risks that go with normal cotton farming.

Further organic cotton prices are on average 20 percent higher than those for the conventionally farmed crop. In 2005, Kyrgyz organic cotton farmers were paid US $0.60 per kg of raw organic cotton, while traditional cotton growers were offered $0.40 at best per kg.

Organic cotton growing in Kyrgyzstan was started under the the BioCotton project, supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Dutch Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (HIVOS).

Helvetas, the Swiss Association for International Development is the main promoter of this innovative project.

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