The financial pressures exerted on cotton farmers by two extended periods of low prices since the mid-1980s have set off considerable policy reforms in major producing countries with low and middle incomes. We present a review of some of the significant changes in selected countries that we have studied recently.

The cotton reforms in the Francophone African region were focused on increasing the flexibility of producer prices to accommodate the volatility of prices in the international markets, the elimination of subsidies on production inputs, improving the operational efficiency of cotton institutions, and taxation issues. In Uzbekistan, the cotton sub-sector is responding to serious environmental problems and adjustments to marketing a much larger share of its cotton in convertible currencies markets. Pakistan and Turkey have made substantial adjustments to accommodate a major part of their cotton being exported as textiles and clothing.