* Favourable rainfall boosting production
* Talks continuing with Monsanto on possible compensation (Adds detail, soybean development plan with French partners)
By Gus Trompiz
PARIS, Jan 16 Burkina Faso estimates its production of raw cotton will rise to 750,000 tonnes in 2016/2017 compared to around 600,000 tonnes in the previous harvest as favourable rainfall boosts output, the country's agriculture minister said on Monday.
The west African country's growers had reverted entirely to conventional cotton for the new crop, after blaming a genetically modified (GM) variety supplied by U.S. seed maker Monsanto for a decline in cotton quality.
The 2016/17 harvest was showing improved quality as well as production, minister Jacob Ouedraogo told reporters in Paris.
Burkina Faso's cotton producers had complained that increased levels of short fibres in their GM cotton had impacted its market value, and last April announced they were seeking 48.3 billion CFA francs ($78 million) in compensation from Monsanto.
Monsanto has acknowledged changes in cotton fibre length, but argued that fibre quality is also influenced by environmental conditions and that other cotton varieties have shown length variations.
The talks between Burkina's producers and Monsanto were continuing, Ouedraogo added.
The minister was in Paris to sign an agreement with French partners, including a foundation of oilseed group Avril, to develop a soybean sector in Burkina Faso.
The project aims to raise soybean production, currently marginal in the country, to 100,000 tonnes over the next five years and also nurture a domestic processing industry to keep jobs and revenues in the country, said Ouedraogo.
He also argued that the cotton industry had not developed enough local value-added processing.
Soybean production, which generates oil and protein for human consumption as well as producing livestock feed, would be based on non-GM varieties, he said.
($1 = 618.4200 CFA francs)
(Reporting by Gus Trompiz; Writing by John Irish; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)
