YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Cameroon produced 145,000 tonnes of cotton this year, missing its 2008/09 target, and the weather outlook for the next crop is not good but a grant for fertiliser should help the industry, a farmers' group said.

This year's output is well above the 2007/08 total of 111,000 tonnes but the industry is still struggling due to high fertiliser costs and low demand, while production levels are still far off the 300,000 tonnes produced in 2004/05.

Hamadou Nouhou, technical director of the Cameroon Cotton Producers' Organisation, said the 32 percent increase this year was largely down to good rainfall, but he was pessimistic over next year's crop.

"We've not had as much rain this year as last year. The weather is too dry for now for a good cotton harvest. We pray the situation will soon change as sowing gets underway," Nouhou told Reuters on Friday 17 July.

Nouhou said that many farmers had given up cotton and turned to food production but he welcomed the government's announcement this week to provide a 6.8 billion CFA franc grant to farmers to buy fertilisers.

"It is a major boost for us the farmers. It has come at the appropriate moment and I am sure some people who gave up cotton cultivation will pick up their hoes again," he said.

The cost of a bag of fertiliser will fall some 6,000 francs to 19,000 francs per 50 kg bag, he added.

The cost of fertilisers has gone up by 40 percent over the last three years.

Cotton is grown in three northern Cameroonian regions. Industry officials have warned that the collapse of the industry, which critics say is undermined by cotton subsidies in the West, has put the livelihoods of more than 200,000 people at stake.