Fairtrade Cotton Monitoring Report – 10th edition
In this challenging time it’s great to share some good news. The latest Fairtrade International Monitoring Report has been released and it includes some promising stats.
We’re pleased see a 39% increase in sales of Fairtrade cotton. Even better, farmers and workers benefited a 33% increase in their Fairtrade premium earned on cotton. And 14% of the Fairtrade premium they earned was spent directly on school infrastructure.
Every year Fairtrade International releases a similar report for each of the primary commodities, including key data, detail on Fairtrade premium spend, and case studies demonstrating the impact of Fairtrade in that commodity sector.
It’s an important piece of work. And it’s promising to see growth in Fairtrade cotton. The report also details a 26% increase in area under Fairtrade cotton cultivation.
Cotton farmers in the developing world have high levels of illiteracy, limited land holdings, and many live below the poverty line. They depend on middlemen (or “ginners”) who buy their cotton, often at prices below the cost of production. Add the rising costs of production, fluctuating market prices, falling yields, climate change, and food price inflation and you see their dire situation.
The Fairtrade Cotton Standard was launched more than a decade ago to benefit the farmers at the end of a long and complex supply chain. Over this period, Fairtrade has succeeded in raising awareness of the problems faced by cotton farmers, empowering and training producers, and attracting more textile companies to source Fairtrade cotton.
There are more than 45,000 farmers across eight producing countries contributing to Fairtrade certified cotton producer organizations. The majority are in India, which is also where we source the Fairtrade cotton for your New Zealand Ecobags from.
Read the full report here: https://www.fairtrade.net/library/monitoring-the-scope-and-benefits-of-fairtrade-cotton-monitoring-report-10th-edition
Shop our organic cotton and Fairtrade certified bags here: https://ecobags.co.nz/product-category/organic-cotton/