Burkina Faso/mali/benin: US producers reap cotton subsidies and destroy African livelihoods

Each acre of US cotton farmland attracts a subsidy of US $230 – equivalent to the average annual income in Burkina Faso. In 2001-2002, America’s 25 000 cotton farmers reaped a bumper subsidy harvest of US $3.9bn – a sum larger than Burkina Faso’s GDP and three times the total USAID budget for Africa. The largest 10 per cent of producers receive three-quarters of total payments. Oxfam estimates that the income lost to African producers is equivalent to the value of a third of total US aid to Africa. Mali received US $37m in US aid in 2001 but lost US $43m as a result of lower cotton export earnings. US subsidies cost Mali 1.7 per cent of GDP and 8 per cent of export earnings.