Cotton production in Kenya currently stands at 4,000 metric tons of lint while the spinning capacity demand is about 10,000 metric tons of lint. Currently, the country imports more than 50 per cent of its lint requirements from the neighboring countries, putting pressure on the demand for foreign exchange.

Initiatives have been put in place to enable smallholder farmers venture into the farming of cotton and help revive the troubled sector.

Cotton is a crop that is mainly grown in western, coastal and central Kenya.

Key stakeholders such as farmers, input suppliers, market agents, ginners, spinners and textile millers have been involved in promoting not only production but the value and consumption of cotton.

Various resources are being mobilised to ensure that opportunities in the cotton textile value chains are enhanced. To achieve the goal, farmers are given easy credit, being trained, provided farming inputs such as equipment, seeds and chemicals.

Currently the country produces an average of 25,000 bales against a demand of 2,00,000 bales, with the deficit covered through imports from neighboring countries of Uganda and Tanzania and from the Far East.

Cotton production has remained below the national demand due to unstable international prices and high cost of production.