Kagtaou, Chad
In the sweltering heat, Dรฉclador Rimleldeoudje weaves his way through thousands of stalks in his field, which he hopes will turn into hundreds of kilos of cotton, the white gold of this region of southern Chad, whose cultivation is now under threat.
At the entrance to his village of Kagtaou, some sixty kilometers from Moundou, the “capital” of the fertile south, a gigantic skip overflowing with cotton has still not been purchased by the semi-private company CotonTchad, and the unpredictable rains are causing cotton growers to fear losing their crop before it is purchased.
“We like cotton, but it’s too difficult (…) we don’t have a stable climate. That’s a handicap. It affects tonnage,” explains this 24-year-old farmer, whose profits have been divided by three since the previous harvest.
In Kagtaou, almost everyone makes a living from cotton. But more and more are becoming discouraged, hit hard by the effects of climate change and age-old conflicts between herders and farmers.
-Climate change
“The manifestations of climate change”, which lead to “rainfall irregularities sometimes marked by periods of drought or sporadic flooding”, have resulted in “enormous drops in production”, explains climatologist Laohote Baohoutou from the University of N’Djamena.
They have also exacerbated age-old agro-pastoral conflicts.
These pit nomadic herders from the arid Sahelian zones of the north against sedentary indigenous farmers in the south. The former make their herds pass or graze in the fields of the latter, or dispute ownership of certain lands.
At least 23 people were killed in seven days of clashes at the end of March, and the frequent fighting spares neither women nor children.
Added to this is the destruction caused by torrential rains. According to the UN, the floods of 2022 ravaged more than 350,000 hectares of crops and killed 20,000 head of cattle, leaving “the southern part of the country the hardest hit”.
“It’s discouraging”, sighs Dรฉclador, “I have the impression that the south is not counted on the map of Chad (…), there’s no help”.
Since April, the African continent has been facing extreme climatic phenomena: in the West, heat waves exceeding 48ยฐCelius; in the East, torrential rains with deadly consequences, notably in Kenya and Tanzania.
-Forgotten by the country”.
Once one of the most flourishing sectors of Chadian agriculture, cotton has seen its share of GDP and exports shrink from 2.15% of exports in 2015 to 0.7% in 2020, according to the World Bank.
Some, like the president of the Kagtaou cotton growers’ village association, who have been “abandoned and forgotten by the country”, are counting on a political change to improve their situation. […]
His promises of “justice and equality” appeal to many idle cotton growers who receive no compensation when their fields are destroyed by livestock or bad weather.
Humaniterre
Source : AFP
