Zimbabwe’s cotton farmers sweating for no gain

GOKWE — After building her home in Zimbabwe, sending her children to school, and becoming the breadwinner after her husband fell ill, all from the money she earned from cotton, now Loice Dzivakwi has fallen on hard times.

Dzivakwi (61) told how after her husband Raymond Mufi was seriously injured at work, he left his job in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, and headed back home to Gokwe, an area in the Midlands province famed for cotton farming.

Even after her husband died last year at the age of 81, she continued to grow cotton, something she has done for decades on end, and had been a pillar of financial support for her husband even when he was employed.

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