Cotton – the truth behind the image

To most people, cotton has a good image – a soft pure white ‘natural’ product. As a renewable resource grown by an estimated 100 million cotton farms employing 350 million people, processed by millions of factory workers, cotton has great potential to alleviate poverty. In fact, intensive cotton cultivation and associated downstream processing into finished garments and household products, is a very different story.

Cotton Production

Unfair subsidies, mainly by the US have distorted world prices pushed many African farmers close to destitution and the starvation that goes with it.

Price pressure has also occurred over the last 25 years from poor quality production and increased competition from synthetic fabrics.

Limited value addition together with falling prices has left farmers in debt, often securing inputs by bartering their future crop: if the crop fails they fall further into debt. In India this debt cycle has resulted in hundreds of cotton farmers committing suicide. In June 2004, 126 suicides were recorded in Andraha Pradesh alone.

22.5% of all global consumption of insecticides is on cotton.

• These products are often toxic and carcinogenic.
• Those picking and handling the crop, often women and children, are frequently unaware of the dangers – poisoning is common.
• Excessive application causes run off into watercourses killing fish and other wildlife, contaminating water for drinking and irrigation, and thus entering the food chain.

Genetically modified seeds are heavily promoted often without effective controls or clear benefits for small-scale farmers.

Cotton is a thirsty crop – intensive irrigation and excessive draw off from rivers and lakes have caused massive environmental damage in areas like the Aral Sea.

Downstream Processing

Processing of the cotton fibre into finished products employs many millions of people and can also involve environmental damage and human misery in the developing world where production is concentrated. Manufacturers are exposed to intense competition in trying to secure orders from Global brands with massive purchasing power and the ability to switch supply quickly. Many different companies can be involved in different steps of manufacture. In such a climate social and environmental standards only matter if buyers enforce them- and most do not. Current retailers primary demand for flexible supply chains undermines those that do demand minimum social and ecological conditions.

• The result is often:
  • Poverty wages, enforced overtime, no holidays, or job security. Workers accommodated in cramped and dangerous ‘hostels’. Widespread exploitation of young girls who are denied education.
  • Dangerous working conditions:
  • Lung disease in spinning/ginning
  • Poisoning, cancer and skin disease in dye-house employees
  • Hearing damage in weaving
  • Eyesight and Repetitive Strain Injury damage in sewing
  • Environmental damage from yarn finishes, dyeing and bleaching
  • Heavy metals, chlorine compounds, formaldehyde, and other toxic discharges-human impact too if these enter drinking water supplies.
  • Optical brighteners, flame-retardants, biocides, and processing residues can all have health, environmental, or allergenic impacts.

We now need buyers and industry leaders to take up the challenge, catalysing the change needed to clean up the cotton business. 

The Fair Traders Co-operative selects products from suppliers that are committed to maximising the positive and reducing any negative impacts resulting from their activities. Every product we sell has an Assessment Label providing consumers with a snapshot of the most significant social, environmental and economic impacts of the products and suppliers involved. We look at the complete supply chain; from the basic raw materials to the finished product. The information is compiled by a panel of our members, shared with the suppliers and placed into the public domain for complete transparency. Those requiring more detail, wishing to comment or ask questions can go to the specific product in the online shop, the Fair Traders Forum, or our Facebook or Twitter pages. In time, we hope that workers (and their communities) involved in making the products will contribute and that suppliers will also post details of improvements they have made.

It is not a perfect system, but it does give consumers a better understanding of, and influence over, the affects of their purchasing choices. It can provide a local context and, if desired, connect them directly with those making the products.