Bountiful cotton, thanks to chemicals

Farmers taking part in cotton picking at a cotton farm in Korhogo, Ivory Coast. — Reuters

WITHOUT pausing to wipe the sweat from their brows, workers in northern Ivory Coast picked cotton by the handful – a crop saved by the use of extra insecticides after a new pest wreaked record damage across West and Central Africa last season.

The Indian cotton jassid or Amrasca biguttula insect appeared as if from nowhere across much of the region’s cotton belt in 2022-23, injecting a toxin into the plants that led to a near 25% production slump year-on-year. Some countries lost over half their forecast harvest.