Fairtrade Cotton - what exactly is it and why do we need it?

More people are becoming aware of the choices which they, as consumers, have to influence how the money which they spend on products is used. There are two main, largely separate movements at the moment.

1. Those based around ecological awareness. So a typical question might be which of the choices that i have can help the environment more. You see this with products which consume a lot of energy such as cars and electrical appliances.

2. Then you have movements which are dedicated to improving the conditions for the poorer people within the supply chain. Basically trying to give the farmers, who are often in third world countries, a fair deal. To try and isolate them from some of the adverse market conditions as well as developing sustainable policies.

Fairtrade cotton was launched in November 2005 and specifically addresses the poverty issues associated with cotton production in the Southern hemisphere.

To quote from the fair trade questions and answers paper

The Mark is an independent product certification label which guarantees that cotton farmers are getting a better deal - receiving a fair and stable Fairtrade price and Fairtrade premium, receiving pre-financing where requested and
benefiting from longer-term, more direct trading relationships.

The fair trade price is set to exceed the cost of sustainable production. It acts as a buffer against price fluctuations and also tries to even out the distortions in the market due to production subsidies in America and China.

So which countries are involved? Well for the United Kingdom.....groups currently selling into the UK market are from India, Peru, Mali, Cameroon, and Senegal.

What is truly amazing is when you compare the costs in Africa to grow the cotton...to what the garment which is then made from it will then sell for...this quote is from the BBC

The average price of a T-shirt imported into the US is $1.51, but a downtown department store in Manhattan will sell two for $20; cotton that started in Africa costing $0.76 a kilo is now worth $25 a kilo.

So when you see this huge gap between the farm gate cost and the end selling price it is , hopefully, not too hard to see how just  a few cents extra at the farm gate can help move the producers out of poverty without dramatically hitting the overall profits of the garments.