Organisations enter into contract to promote organic cotton

To promote the creation of fair and transparent supply chains for organic farmers to the consumers, the Organic Accelerator has joined hands with Sustainable Textiles.

The main objective of this venture focuses on spreading awareness between brands, retailers and farmers on practical solutions to improve the availability of organic cotton. This can be achieved by sharing resources and developing tools to improve such relationships.

The head of the Partnership Secretariat, Jürgen Janssen stated that building strong links between supply and demand plays an important role in their endeavour as this will reduce the risk at the farming level that enables small-scale farmers to convert their production to organic and sell their products at a premium.

The joint ambition aims to increase the share of sustainable cotton by 75% and the ratio of organic cotton contained in it to reach 20%. Both the OCA and the collaboration for Sustainable Textiles are looking forward to connecting brands and retailers to small farmers.

However, only as the demand rises the farmers will be expected to transition to cultivating organic cotton. Creating this demand is among the highest priorities for the two partners. The organisations have underlined three focus areas they hope could kick-start interest in organic cotton.

The organisation’s first aims at increasing awareness and knowledge of brands, retailers and farmers on practical approaches and solutions to improve the availability of organic cotton. It secondly aims to share resources and capacity building for small scale farmers for efficient and beneficial cultivation of organic cotton. The organisation also wants to ensure joint development supporting tools for brands and retailers to provide relevant information for sustainable sourcing.

Janssen stated that the market for certified organic cotton poses one of the mysteries in their efforts for a fairer and a more sustainable textile industry.  He said that brands and retailers state they struggle to get their hands on materials, while the farmers complain that their organic produce through conventional channels without any premiums. He believes that this partnership and their cooperation with OCA for Sustainable Textile would increase the leverage for change in the organic supply chain to solve this mystery and increase production and availability of certified organic cotton.

The main focus to success being the two entities deliver tangible benefits to organic farmers, not just the promise of better prices, but through securing offtake for their organic cotton and access to organic seeds and training.

The organisation stated that they aim to foster the availability of organic cotton for the entire supply chain while ensuring a positive impact of organic cotton on the people, planet and the farmers.