Cereal production, including rice, has grown annually, and the 1997-98 cotton harvest reached a record 500,000 tons.

There was little cash in circulation, since most farmers operated on credit accounts from local merchants, and paid off their debts at cotton harvest time in the fall.

The subsidy payments stimulated overproduction and resulted in a record cotton harvest in 2002, much of which had to be sold at very reduced prices in the global market.

His personal wealth, thanks to the enthusiastic way he trousered profits from his country's cotton harvests - which were sustained by forced labour - was thought to be not unadjacent to $1 billion.

At the cotton harvesting time if it rains the cotton will be spoiled.