May 13, 2009

Hit by the global financial crisis and low world cotton prices, Cameroon's state-run Cotton Development Corp., or Sodecoton, has started growing soy to make up for losses in the cotton sector, the company's deputy general manager Henri Clavier said Tuesday (May 12).

Sodecoton had projected the 2009 season (June-May) cotton output at 160,000 tonnes, although in a recent interview, the company's general manager Mohamed Iya said it had already lost 10,000 tonnes, slashing output to an estimated 150,000 tonnes.

"We're seriously studying to diversify into the growing of other fatty vegetable production, and we're already in soy production. Last year we produced over 1,000 hectares of soy with cotton growers," said Clavier, who didn't say the quantity that was produced.

"We have a programme to grow soy on 12,000 hectares with the same farmers, and we envisage making 50,000-60,000 hectares of soy cultivation, to complement with cotton farming," the Sodecoton official said.

Sodecoton also produces vegetable oil from cotton seeds, totalling 50,000 litres of vegetable oil daily. Following a drastic drop in cotton seed output, the firm began buying refined palm oil locally, which it mixes with cotton oil to market.

Sodecoton is jointly owned by the Cameroon government, with a 59 percent stake, and France's Companie Francaise de Developpement du Textile.