Living income in small holder cotton production in Africa
In this webinar, we took a closer look into the price building in the cotton sector with special emphasis on the impacts on African small-scale cotton farmers. Further, we presented and discussed the impact of different cotton sector organization models in Africa to improve farmers’ productivity and income. The cotton sector in different countries of sub-Saharan Africa shows different organizational models, ranging from atomistic competition to monopolistic structures. The models differ in their type of service provision and purchase agreements offered to smallholder farmers. As a result, there is an ongoing debate over which form of cotton sector organization offers more benefits to the farmers.
In order to assess the gap between the actual income and a living income, information on total household income is needed. GIZ developed a simple tool based on gross margin calculations of a given focus product (crop) to estimate total household income, incl. on-farm, off-farm and other income streams. We presented and discussed this tool and its application among cotton farming households in Cameroon.