Government has confirmed not being able to buy seed for cotton farmers.

Government says that it has not managed to procure cotton seed for farmers this farming season.
Eastern Province Permanent Secretary, Chanda Kasolo told Breeze News that farmers in the province will not be given cotton seed by government because it is not available.
Mr. Kasolo says the unavailability of cotton seed is due to high cost of the seed in countries where Zambia buys it from.
Mr. Kasolo explained that the high price of cotton seed is as a result of recent loss of the value of the Zambian Kwacha.
He says this does not mean that farmers in the Province will not grow cotton this season because some farmers have managed to buy their own seed from marketing companies.
He however says government is doing everything possible to ensure that farmers get all the required seed in the next farming season.
And on groundnut seed, Mr. Kasolo says only 4,720 bags of groundnut seed have been distributed to the farmers out of the allocated 12, 720 bags.
He added that the farmers have also received about 1,130 bags of sorghum out of the allocation of about 1,500 bags.
And the Permanent Secretary says the distribution of fertilizer under FISP, the Farmer Input and Support Programme has been completed in the province.