Fair Trade Cotton

If you want to download the Study Equicoton on fairtrade cotton, go to the Historical page of the project.

Conventional cotton.
The world production of cotton is equivalent to approximately 25 million Tons per year and is dominated by 4 countries: China, the USA, India, and Pakistan, which account for 70% of the world production of cotton. Then comes Brazil, West Africa, Ouzbekistan and Turkey.

On the whole they are 125 million people who depend directly on cotton for their survival.

Third world cotton producer, India counts for 17% of the world production. French-speaking Africa represents less than 5% of the world production of cotton, but its exports account for 15% of the world trade.
The world consumption of cotton fibre has increased by 2% annually since 1940, and cotton occupies 40% of the vestimentary fibre sales. In spite of that, a fall of the prices has prevailed in the sector for several years.

The fall of the prices of cotton is caused by:

• A chronic cotton overproduction.
• The competition of synthetic fibres (60% of the market).
• A constant increase in the productivity without respect of the environment.
• Subsidies of the USA and Europe to their producers.
• The deceleration of the world growth.
• Cultivated varieties and the quality of fibres.

The following graph represents the collapse of the world cotton price in the 10 last years.

>The subsidies.
In countries such as China, the USA, and the EU, the large producers of cotton makes pressure on their government in order to obtain subsidies. The result is that supports a cotton overproduction, and involves the price collapse of cotton, on levels lower than the production cost of the producers. In USA, 25% of the subsidies are granted to the 1% of the richest farmers, 75% of the subsidies go to the 10% of the American farmers richest.

The subsidies of the USA and the EU caused a drop of 300 million dollars in loss of earnings for the African continent. Without the subsidies, the American cotton production would have dropped by 29% in 2001-2002 and exports of 41%. OMC qualifies these subsidies of illegal dumping. In spite of this judgment, the USA continue to subsidize their producers what directly involves the ruin of the small in particular African and Indian cotton producers.

Producers' problems

In the North (USA).

Despite of the subsidies much of the producers remain involved in debt because 75% of the subsidies go to 10% of the richest farmers.

In The South (India)

The standard of living of the producers is very low. They spend enormous sums, always in increase, for the purchase of seeds and pesticides. Many producers are involved in pure debt to buy seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, and do not manage to refund. Many have no other choice but to take their life away by ingesting the pesticides. One counts several thousands of case of suicides in the last years in India.

(West Africa)

The dumping practised by the countries of the North on the one hand does not make it possible to have a handsome price for cotton and, on the other hand it causes losses of several million euro so that certain countries cannot raise their economies, and must again have recourse to the loans of the international organizations like the World Bank.

Cotton and environment.

The culture of cotton is one of most polluting in the world considering the enormous quantity of pesticide used. Indeed, 25% of the pesticides produced in the world are used by the culture of cotton. For the USA and in India, 50% of the pesticides are intended for the culture of cotton. There are more than 8 000 different chemicals used in the culture and the transformation of cotton.

One estimates at more than 40 000 the annual number of deaths due to the pesticides (http:www.pesticideinfo.org). They are approximately 1,5 liters of pesticides which are used in the culture of the cotton used in the manufacture of only one Tee-shirt! The use of these chemicals increases the rock salt rate in the ground, involving the salinisation of the grounds.

Deforestation is one of the perverse effects of the culture of cotton in Africa and India, because it is necessary to cut down the trees in the neighbourhoods of the cultivated pieces because the culture of cotton does not support the shade. Very widespread monoculture in the cotton zones, exhausts the grounds. The culture of cotton requires water enormously so that rivers must be diverted, built stoppings or pumps installed to draw the water of the ground.

Cotton and health.
The pesticides used are source of many diseases not only for the producers who are directly exposed but also for their families. The children whose parents use chemical pesticides for agriculture or gardening have 7 times more chance to be victims of leukaemias.

Certain producers suffer from loss of weight, tremor, affection of the kidneys, headaches affection of the nervous system, one observes also affections of the foetus under development, cancers of the prostate, breast, immunodéficience of the liver.

GMO Cotton
Cotton GMO, Geneticaly Modified Cotton - or BT cotton - carries a production of toxin BT. This toxin kills certain vermin which tackles cotton. Only 5 companies control the nine tenth of GMO seeds. According to these companies, the advantage of this cotton is double: better harvests and a reduced use of pesticides. These companies exert enormous pressure on the governments of the countries of the South so that cotton BT is established.

Among the environmental risks related to the GMO one counts the risk of dissemination of mutant genes towards other plants or cultures and the possible appearance of super vermin: insects resistant with time to toxin BT.

In India, the report is that the cotton producers are taken in the spiral of debt so that some for this reason commit suicide. GMO seeds cost on average 6 times more than the ordinary seeds. They sell GMO seeds to the producers while pleading that the saving will be 50% of their expenditure in pesticides and that their harvests would be improved. Most of the time, that is proven to be false.

The fairtrade path concerning cotton is, as for the fairtrade coffee, a product path. I.e. it is cotton as a raw material which is labellised by FLO-I and Transfair Canada. Fairtrade cotton makes it possible to the producer to perceive a minimum price guaranteed whatever the fluctuations of the matter on the world levels.

The guaranteed price covers the life production costs of the producer, as well as the overcosts related to the constraint of certification.

Moreover, the organizations of producers receive a development incentive to finance projects decided by the community. This premium is intended for the producer group, for the financing of projects decided by the members, in general assembly, in particular of the projects useful and necessary to the whole of the community (the access to water with construction of drillings, the access to education for the children, the access to medical care, etc...).

The guaranteed minimum price and the fairtrade premium i.e. (the prices fairtrade correspond to the prices paid to the producers for their cotton not shelled gross). The fairtrade system of Fairtrade Labelling Organisations (FLO) functions on the basis of guaranteed minimum price paid to the producer for the raw material added with a premium to the development.