Tanzania Cotton: Sourcing Guide

Overview

Cotton is grown almost entirely (98.8-99.9% of national production, every season) in the “Western Cotton Growing Area” around the southern shore of Lake Victoria — the Lake Zone — with a small, marginal “Eastern Cotton Growing Area” around Morogoro, Kilimanjaro, Pwani and Manyara. It is a 100%-rainfed, smallholder-dominated crop: a Tanzania Cotton Board conference paper describes roughly 350,000-500,000 smallholder farmers sowing an average 400,000 hectares. Cultivation in the Lake Zone expanded historically following construction of the Tabora-Mwanza railway in 1928.

Production

Tanzania Cotton Board’s own official 10-season register (national seed-cotton, i.e. unginned, tonnes): 149,913 (2015/16), 122,362 (2016/17), 132,929 (2017/18), 222,725 (2018/19), 348,963 (2019/20, a peak season), 122,676 (2020/21), 144,792 (2021/22), 174,033 (2022/23), 282,316 (2023/24), 149,361 (2024/25, a shortfall attributed by TCB’s own Principal Agricultural Officer to a January-February drought). Press coverage citing NBS gives different figures for some of the same seasons (e.g. 331,524t vs. TCB’s 348,963t for 2019/20; 218,413t vs. 174,033t for 2022/23) — a marketing-board delivery tally vs. an independent crop-cut survey are two different measurement concepts, and neither figure is silently preferred here. Simiyu Region is unambiguously the largest producer in every one of the 10 seasons in TCB’s own table — a claim that a widely-circulated “Shinyanga produces 60% of national output” figure directly contradicts and which we could not verify from any primary source.

Ginning & Grading

Seed cotton is ginned to separate lint from cottonseed; historical ginning-outturn ratios of 33-35% appear in the peer-reviewed literature (Baffes 2004: 33.4% national, 35% Mwanza, 32% Shinyanga), materially lower than an unverified 52%-equivalent figure attributed to FAOSTAT, which is not used here. Tanzania Cotton Board’s own 2011 Regulations define statutory Grade A (“mature seed cotton…white and free from stain”) and Grade B, require High Volume Instrument (HVI) lint-quality certificates alongside manual grading for every export permit, and set a standard bale weight of 206kg for TCB’s own export accounting (the law separately permits a 181-220kg range). TCB’s official 2025 register lists 94 operating ginneries nationwide (84 in the Western Zone, 10 Eastern), a marked increase from older estimates of around 42, with new ginnery construction recorded 2022-2025.

Trade Data

TCB’s own official export register (lint, 206kg bales and US$): 2019/20 — 499,248 bales / US$159.2 million; 2022/23 — 283,694 bales / US$172.8 million; 2023/24 — 434,446 bales / US$264.6 million; 2024/25 — 229,894 bales / US$74.1 million. Bangladesh was consistently the largest single buyer through most of this period; India and Pakistan rose sharply in the most recent seasons, and China emerged as a buyer from 2022/23 onward. Press coverage (citing NBS) states roughly 80% of production is exported as raw fibre rather than processed domestically, consistent with the sector’s stated policy direction toward more domestic value-addition. Separate aggregator figures (OEC, Trading Economics, both citing UN Comtrade) put 2024 calendar-year raw-cotton export value at approximately US$76.6 million — a different accounting basis (calendar year, narrower HS scope) than TCB’s own season-based bale/value figures above, and not reconciled with them.

Ginners & Processors

TCB’s official 2025 ginnery register directly names OLAM Tanzania (Mara), MeTL Group/Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania (Mara, also operating 21st Century Textiles, described as one of the largest composite textile mills in Sub-Saharan Africa and supporting over 6,000 cotton farmers), Alliance Ginneries Ltd (Simiyu), Kahama Cotton Company (Shinyanga, Geita and Morogoro), and two cooperative-union successor entities — NCU (1984) Ltd (six ginneries in Mwanza, some dating to the 1930s-1960s) and SIMCU (four ginneries in Simiyu). Several names circulating in secondary sources (e.g. “NAFCOM,” “URAFIKI Textiles” as a standalone ginner) do not appear in TCB’s own register and are omitted here.

What We Don’t Know

No current Tanzania Cotton Board indicative producer price (in TZS/kg, for a recent season) was located — the pricing mechanism (a Board-set, non-binding seasonal floor) is well documented, but a current number is not, so no price series is published on this portal. FAOSTAT’s and USDA IPAD’s own databases could not be directly queried during this research pass; area/yield figures attributed to NBS (e.g. 310,431 ha for 2022/23) come only through press citation, not a primary NBS document we could verify. Cottonseed/oil by-product yield figures attributed to a 2015 TCB study, and cottonseed-meal trade-share figures, rest only on search-summary sourcing we could not independently confirm and are not repeated as fact here.