ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast's 2012/13 cotton season will yield about 340,000 tonnes, the executive secretary of the country's ginners' association said on Monday, increasing the body's forecast from the previous 300,000-315,000 tonnes.
The West African nation produced around 260,000 tonnes during the 2011/12 harvest.
"At the end of July we were at around 340,000 hectares planted. For this cotton season, we are therefore expecting at least 340,000 tonnes of cotton," said Christophe N'Dri.
The cotton season opened on May 20 with a season-long farmgate price set at 265 CFA francs ($0.51) per kg. Farmers are also due to received a bonus at the end of the season if prices remained firm on the world market.
"The fact that many farmers benefited from fertiliser distributions before the end of July and the attractive buying prices for the new harvest were both factors which created a lot of interest in cotton growing this season," he said.
Ivory Coast was one of the West African region's major cotton exporters, with annual output of about 400,000 tonnes, before a 2002-2003 civil war split the country in two and halved production.
Violence peaked last year when a 2010 election led to months of fighting, but the nation has seen a year of reconstruction.
"The normalised political situation has greatly helped the cotton sector," N'Dri said.
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