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Organic cotton is gaining ground
3/2004 |
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[ European network ]
Organic cotton is gaining ground
No crop is treated as intensively with pesticides as cotton. The “white gold” is doused with so many chemicals that the soil becomes contaminated, pests develop resistances, people get sick and die. So a growing number of cotton farmers – including farmers in Africa – are switching to organic farming. Because yields are generally good, the quality of cotton high and expenditures on expensive pesticides and fertilisers reduced to zero, organic cotton farming can be a financially attractive option. But as Simplice Davo Vodouhe, coordinator of the Organisation Beninoise pour la Promotion de l’Agriculture Biologique (OBEPAB), told delegates at a Hamburg conference hosted by PAN Germany (Pesticide Action Network) and OBEPAB last month, farmers don't have enough organic industry contacts to sell their products. Only a third of the world's organically grown cotton is marketed as such; the rest is blended and sold with conventionally produced cotton.
“Small-scale farmers are the weakest link in the chain of producers, textile manufacturers and consumers”, said ecological farming consultant Saro Gerd Ratter. Oxfam worker David Bright pointed out that there is no region in the world where farmers and governments are more dependent on cotton exports than West Africa. Between 1997 and 2002, the world market price for cotton dropped by nearly 40 percent. This was largely because of farm subsidies paid by the big cotton producers, notably the United States. According to the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), the Sahel states increased their cotton output by 14 percent from 2000 to 2002, yet over the same period they registered a 31 percent drop in export revenues. For organic cotton growers, too, David Bright said it is extremely important that Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali should succeed with their cotton initiative in the World Trade Organisation – because the price for organic cotton rises and falls with the price for conventional cotton.
Meanwhile, organic cotton is emerging from its niche market and becoming a mainsteam product. For example, Coop, Switzerland's second-biggest retail chain, already sells more than a third of its textiles under the eco-label Naturaline. “We could certainly make more money with conventional cotton but organic cotton is good business as well”, said Coop purchasing director Emanuel Büchlin. Along with German mail-order company Otto, retail groups in France (Monoprix) and the UK (Marks & Spencer) now have organic cotton products in their range. At the Hamburg conference, NGO representatives and organic industry delegates set up a European network to enable them to coordinate their actions better in the future.
Anke Schwarzer
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