Souley Madi is one of the most productive cotton growers in the Badjengo Cameroon, an area where the lush forests of central Africa give way to the semi-arid Sahel. Thanks to a combination of intense heat and periodic Sahelian rains, Madi consistently produces clean, high-quality cotton on the gently sloping hills that surround his walled compound.

But, as the next growing season approaches, Madi, who is 40, faces a difficult decision: how much cotton should he grow this year? Prices for cotton were so low last year that Madi cut his acreage. He earned less from cotton last year than the year before, and much less than he earned five years ago. "I'm angry, but what can I do?" he asks.

This year Madi may grow even less cotton, even though the crop is the main source of income for himself, his two wives and his five children. On some of his land, he now grows corn and peanuts instead of cotton.

But cotton potentially offers the best payback, because it has cash value on the international market and can be stored for long periods of time. Like millions of other African cotton farmers, Madi has advantages over cotton farmers in other parts of the world. His land costs are low. So are his labor costs, since he relies on family and friends to weed and pick the crop.

Nor does he needs expensive machinery to plant his seeds; his plow is drawn by cattle, and he pushes seeds into the ground with his bare hands. A state-owned cotton company collects his cotton relatively efficiently, gins it nearby to produce lint and then sells the lint on the international market, generally paying Madi promptly and fairly.

Subsidies are a global scandal, yet large payments to largely wealthy American and Greek cotton growers seem likely to persist for many years.

Madi's earnings help him keep his children in school, even at the height of the cotton harvest. Having attended secondary school himself, he believes that his children will better their lives through education. He knows his children's future depends on better prices for cotton.

But forces beyond Madi's control - even beyond his awareness - are restraining cotton prices, creating a global glut that is largely the result of policies followed by the world's richest governments. The United States government pays billions of dollars to cotton growers, mainly in California, Texas, and Mississippi. The European Union also contributes to low cotton prices, paying farmers in Greece about $1 billion a year to grow the crop at a loss.

Such subsidies are a global scandal, yet large payments to largely wealthy American and Greek cotton growers seem likely to persist for many years. The best chance to end cotton subsidies soon was lost last December, when African countries, aided by India and Brazil, pressed hard for the elimination of cotton subsidies, at the World Trade Organization's meeting in Hong Kong. The US and Europe offered only a token reduction, scotching a deal.

The only chance to end cotton subsidies is now somehow to convince US and EU leaders to assist African peasants by curtailing payments to their own cotton farmers. A revision to what Americans call "the farm program" is scheduled for next year. The powerful US cotton lobby wants no change in the level of payments, however. European farmers also want to maintain current subsidy levels, and EU members say that they are unlikely to make any reductions before the end of the decade.

Take away subsidies and cotton prices will rise, perhaps as much as 15%. "There's real money here for the individual African," says Daniel Sumner, an economist and cotton expert at the University of California.

The powerful US cotton lobby wants no change in the level of subsidy payments. European farmers also want to maintain current subsidy levels, and EU members say that they are unlikely to make any reductions before the end of the decade.

Trade officials in both the US and Europe say that they will no longer encourage farmers to overproduce, and that they will end programs that specifically subsidize exports. For Africans, however, these changes are cosmetic, doing little or nothing to lift cotton prices.

Africans are trying to make the best out of a bad situation. In some parts of Africa, cotton growers are expanding production, providing proof that if the US and Europe did somehow curtail their own cotton output, Africans could plug the gap. In Uganda, where civil wars in the 1970's and 1980's devastated farming, cotton growers are making a major comeback. In Zambia, cotton output is soaring. In both countries, foreign investors are opening gins and assisting growers.

In Cameroon, where cotton is the main source of income for nearly five million people, record crops were posted last year and the year before. "Our farmers are dedicated and disciplined, committed to quality," says Ali Batour, a manager with Cameroon's Sodecoton, the state-owned marketer. "They deserve a fair price."

But Souley Madi is resigned to receiving unfair cotton prices, perhaps for a long time. During the last harvest, when 100-degree heat forced him, his wives, and his mother to stop picking cotton after a few hours, he returned to his compound to tend to his ducks. He recently started raising a flock and last Christmas earned the equivalent of $70 on the sale of 18 birds.

Tapping his forehead, Madi insists, "We are waiting for the situation to change." For how long, he says, "depends on God."




Contributed by G. Pascal Zachary, the author of The Diversity Advantage: Multicultural Identity in the New World Economy and a fellow of The German Marshall Fund. Reprinted with permission from Project-Syndicate.

To read another Global Envision article about the impact of farm subsidies, see Why the Rich Won't Budge on 'Farm' Subsidies.



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