Although many small developing countries produce cotton, about five countries produce most of the fiber. China and India alone account for nearly half the global output of cotton. Four small African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali) formed the Cotton-4 or C-4 consortium many years ago to complain about the subsidies for cotton employed by richer countries. They are not wrong but the C-4+ (now including Côte d'Ivoire) produce just 3.5 percent of the world’s cotton. It doesn’t help that the yield and quality of C-4 cotton is much poorer than larger producers.  In response, larger cotton nations refocused the debate on helping C-4 countries improve their output. The “Partenariat pour le Coton”...

TAGS – Softs, Middle East & Africa