Burkina Faso, Africa’s biggest cotton grower, will increase production of the fiber by 55 percent during the 2010-11 harvest as high international prices convince farmers to expand planting.

The West African nation will produce 500,000 metric tons of cotton during the October-to-April harvest, from 322,000 tons in the previous period, said Celestin Tiendrebeogo, chief executive officer of state-controlled cotton company, Societes Burkinabe des Fibres Textiles, or Sofitex. Output is expected to expand to 700,000 tons in 2011-12, he said in an interview in Bobo- Dioulasso, about 360 kilometers (224 miles) from the capital, Ouagadougou, Dec. 13.

Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world, will also pay farmers more for their crop, Tiendrebeogo said.

“At the beginning of the harvest, we had planed 182 CFA francs” ($0.37) per kilogram (2.2 pounds), he said. International prices, which have soared 88 percent this year, mean the farmers will earn 200 francs per kilogram, he said.

Burkina Faso spent 34 billion francs to recapitalize the cotton company earlier this year, Tiendrebeogo said.