Kenya rebuilds the cotton chain from field to fabric

In the small coastal town of Mpeketoni in Lamu County, cotton is once again becoming a crop worth growing.

Farmers are returning to their fields, Bt cotton seed is being distributed and a new ginnery is bringing processing closer to where the crop is grown. The cotton produced here is transported to Thika Cloth Mills (TCM), one of Kenya’s few surviving integrated textile manufacturers.

The revival aims to create jobs, strengthen manufacturing, reduce dependence on imports and enable Kenya to capture more value from its own raw materials. Cotton and textiles are identified as a strategic value chain under Kenya’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda and the Fourth Medium Term Plan, which runs from 2023 to 2027.

The government’s Draft National Cotton, Textile and Apparel Policy of 2024 seeks to increase cotton production, local value addition, employment, skills and market access.

Interviews with people across the value chain suggest that the revival is showing progress as Kenya rebuilds a system weakened over decades.

Kenya was once a major player in cotton and textiles. The draft Cotton, Textile and Apparel (CTA) policy says the sector declined following trade liberalisation and the introduction of second-hand clothing, which weakened local manufacturing and demand.

Dr Concepta Sitati, a lecturer at Mount Kenya University who grew up in western Kenya when cotton was an important cash crop, remembers a more connected system.

Cotton was collected through cooperatives and moved from farms to processing industries, she says. When factories closed, farmers lost reliable markets and stopped growing cotton.

The result was a cycle of decline. Fewer farmers meant less cotton for ginneries and less raw material for textile mills. As factories shut down, workers also lost jobs and technical expertise.

The government hopes to reverse that cycle by rebuilding the value chain from farm to fashion. The CTA policy identifies production, ginning, manufacturing, employment, market access, sustainability and innovation as areas requiring coordinated intervention.

Rebuilding the value chain

For Dominic Ngugi, manager of the Lake Kenyatta Ginnery in Mpeketoni, the change is visible in the fields.

The ginnery works through four cotton cooperatives in Lamu: Lake Kenyatta, Hindi, Witu and Lamu Cotton. Ngugi says Lake Kenyatta alone has more than 7,000 farmers.

Last season, the area produced about 3.5 million kilogrammes of seed cotton, with a current target of 5 million kilogrammes.

The arrangement links farmers directly to Thika Cloth Mills. Ngugi says TCM provides funding to the cooperatives, which then buy cotton from farmers. The ginnery processes the crop, separating the seed from the lint, with the lint ultimately going to TCM.

The model is intended to restore a reliable connection between farmers and processors.

But challenges remain. Ngugi identifies seed availability, pests, transport costs and cash-flow delays. The Ministry of Industry and the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) help provide seed and other inputs, but farmers still need to produce enough cotton at the right quality, and manufacturers must be able to absorb it.

Joyce Njogu, head of Consulting and Business Development at the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), says the revival is already producing results.

She says cotton production has risen from about 1,300 tonnes in 2021 to roughly 8,800 tonnes in 2025.

But that remains far below manufacturers’ needs.

Njogu estimates that Kenya currently produces about 25,000 bales of cotton against demand of roughly 200,000 bales. She says the country therefore continues to import cotton from countries including Tanzania and Uganda.

Official figures also show how much manufacturing capacity remains underused. The 2024 draft CTA policy says Kenya had 52 textile mills, but only 15 were operational, with mills working at about 45% capacity. Sitati argues that restarting factories will also require rebuilding the technical workforce that disappeared when many mills closed.

AFA figures provide a clearer measure of the raw-material gap facing textile manufacturers. In 2024, Kenya produced 11,268 bales of cotton lint from 16,477 hectares, up from 7,006 bales in 2023. This was well below AFA’s estimated national demand of 48,000 bales and even further below Njogu’s estimate of 200,000 bales. AFA reported that seven ginneries were operating during the year.

An integrated approach

At the centre of that effort is Thika Cloth Mills (TCM).

Tejal Dodhia, the company’s managing director, describes TCM as a fully integrated textile manufacturer, taking cotton through spinning, weaving and processing to produce fabric. The factory employs about 650 people.

For James Njagi, who joined the company in 2001 and now heads the spinning department, the industry is personal.

“Cotton means everything to me,” he says. His work has enabled him to educate his children and meet his household’s needs.

When he joined, the factory was struggling. Njagi says production has since risen from less than 50 tonnes of yarn a month to about 100 tonnes. The factory has also moved from periods of operating one shift to running two or three shifts, while its machinery and technology have been modernised.

Dodhia says TCM has invested in green energy. Its one-megawatt solar installation, she says, has reduced electricity costs by about 25%. Biomass boilers using materials such as coffee husks and nut shells have also reduced the cost of generating steam.

The company supplies fabric to government institutions, the disciplined forces, shoe manufacturers and smaller garment producers.

Dodhia says TCM has increasingly been able to source cotton locally and did not import cotton last year, after previously relying on supplies from Uganda and Tanzania.

But, she says, the next challenge is finding enough markets to sustain further expansion.

That challenge is visible at the other end of the chain.

Jamin Sitandi Mwenje, a tailor and fashion designer at Thika Market, says imported fabric still dominates his work.

Some of the materials he needs are unavailable from Kenyan manufacturers, he says. Other fabrics imported from abroad offer qualities that he believes local producers do not consistently match.
Kenyan fabric can be cheaper, making it useful for uniforms and other garments where affordability matters. But Sitandi says quality remains a concern.

He also points to a practical issue. Some Kenyan manufacturers require minimum orders of about 30 metres, he says, which can be difficult for small tailors who need much smaller quantities.
His message to manufacturers is simple: talk to the people who use the fabric.

If producers understood the materials, quantities, quality and prices that designers and tailors need, Sitandi believes more buyers would choose Kenyan products.

That exposes one of the biggest challenges in rebuilding the sector. Growing cotton is only the beginning. Kenya must also produce fabric that businesses and consumers want to buy.

Rebuilding more than factories

For Sitati, restarting the sector requires more than factories.

The industry also lost skilled workers and technical expertise when factories closed, she says. Machinery that remained idle deteriorated, while training systems for textile technology weakened.
She argues that farmers, cooperatives, ginneries, manufacturers and skilled workers must be rebuilt together.

The government’s strategy recognises many of the same problems. The CTA policy calls for increased cotton production, modernised ginneries and textile mills, skills development, greater value addition and improved market access.

The policy also places cotton within the wider economic transformation agenda. Under the Fourth Medium Term Plan, the government aims to strengthen productivity, create 1.2 million jobs annually, expand markets and improve Kenya’s competitiveness.

There are encouraging signs. Cotton production has risen from the low recorded in 2021. Farmers in areas such as Lamu are returning to the crop, a local ginnery is strengthening the connection with processors, and TCM says its use of Kenyan cotton has expanded.

KAM also sees traction in the revival. Njogu says the combination of seed distribution, support for processors and stronger value-chain linkages is beginning to show results.
But the recovery remains incomplete.

Kenya still produces far less cotton than manufacturers require. Buyers continue to cite gaps in quality, product variety and pricing. Much of the country’s manufacturing capacity remains unused, while local producers face competition from imports and international manufacturers.

The real test, therefore, is not simply whether Kenya can grow more cotton. It is whether the country can make the entire chain work: from the farmer planting cotton in Mpeketoni, to the ginnery separating seed from lint, to the spinner turning fibre into yarn, the weaver producing fabric and, finally, the tailor deciding whether that fabric is good enough to sell.

Kenya is reconnecting some of those links. The bigger question is whether it can reconnect all of them and turn a promising revival into a sustainable cotton and textile industry.

Written  by Finley Maranga for bird story agency