20100927
reuters

DAKAR (Reuters) - West Africa could re-emerge onto the world cotton stage in the coming years as higher world prices and the introduction of high-yield strains draw beleaguered farmers back into the fields.

The region once represented about 15 percent of the world's "white gold" exports but was hit hard by a market crash in the early 2000s that West African states blamed on subsidies in competing growers like the United States, analysts told Reuters.

"Higher prices can only be a good thing for West Africa," said Rolake Akinola at Eurasia Group. "Some of these countries will get much more income as a result. But whether this signals a real revival remains to be seen."

Output from the nine top cotton producers in western Africa will reach about 3.14 million bales during the 2010-11, up 38 percent from 2009-10, according to a survey of government and industry forecasts compiled by Reuters.

That would boost West Africa's share of global production to 2.7 percent, from 2.2 percent during the 2009-10 season, though the output would remain some 40 percent below the peaks near 5 million bales produced in 2004-05.

The main driver, analysts said, is a spike up in world cotton prices to 15-year highs as bad weather in big growers China, Pakistan, India and the United States raises fears of a supply crunch.

The West African rebound will be led by Burkina Faso, already the region's top grower which is forecasting a 60 percent boost this year to 600,000 metric tonnes of raw output -- the equivalent of about 1.1 million bales -- thanks in part to the introduction of insect-resistant, gene-modified seedlings known as "Bt."

"The 2010-11 season will mark the launch of a large scale genetically modified cotton on 95 percent of (Burkina Faso's) total harvested area," said Fana Sylla, a specialist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service based in Dakar. "It will contribute heavily to the enhancement of the cotton productivity," she said.