Besides coffee and cocoa, cotton is one of the African continent’s most important export commodities. For years now, market prices for African cotton have remained very low, mainly due to the EU’s and USA’s subsidy policies. Thus African cotton producers have so far not been able to exploit the opportunities offered by globalisation – and at the same time, the potential contribution that cotton could make to combating poverty could be much higher, given different circumstances. Improved agricultural conditions, a demand stimulus from large-scale retail trading groups in the industrialised nations for African cotton, as well as a more efficient or more transparent international value adding chain would all be major contributions towards helping this happen. This is where the Project ‘Cotton made in Africa’ (CmiA) aims to make a difference, by taking completely new approaches to the implementation of co-operative development aid.

Cotton made in Africa is neither a charity project nor a fair-trade production organisation. The Aid by Trade Foundation established by Dr. Michael Otto aims to go significantly further, by improving the social, economic and ecological conditions within cotton production, but without triggering a substantial rise in cotton prices. By doing so, the project intends to help hundreds of thousands of cotton farmers and their families leave poverty behind. 150,000 smallholder cotton farmers in Benin, Burkina Faso, Zambia and Mozambique are learning about integrated plant protection methods as well as about practices that help make clear improvements in the quality of the cotton produced – and therefore make it more attractive on the global cotton market.

By transferring knowledge of efficient cultivation methods, such as timely planting, careful cotton field monitoring during the cultivation season and activities to help maintain soil fertility levels, crop yields can sometimes be more than doubled. What is more, all participating smallholder farmers can count on prompt payment and with this stable income, be able to send their children to school and give them the chance to qualify for better professional opportunities, also outside the agricultural sector.

Zambia’s smallholder farmers make their mark

In Zambia some 90,000 smallholder farmers are participating in the Project – and the initial figures from the 2006 CmiA cotton campaign show that following the training courses organised by CmiA Partner Dunavant for its contracted farmers, the yield per farmer has risen by some 85 per cent per hectare!

The chief success factors here were better field management, timely planting, careful pre-planting field preparation and good in-field crop care. Farmers were also trained at the same time in integrated pest control: the result is that the farmer no longer automatically sprays according to a fixed schedule but responds to pest infestations in the field, spraying only when a certain pest density threshold is reached. For the farmer, a loss of 10 to 15 per cent of the crop is still preferable to the blanket use of expensive pesticides. This procedure promotes the move towards sustainable cotton cultivation, which makes sound financial sense for the smallholder farmers.

Together we’re strong: the Cotton Demand Alliance

As well as these forms of training, Project organisers have organised a group of textile companies who have committed to take up and process defined volumes of sustainably produced cotton for the global market. The demand pull this creates stretches through the textile chain right back to the farmer. The Cotton made in Africa Quality Seal identifies all textiles produced with CmiA cotton fibre, therefore giving the so-far anonymous raw material a public ‘face’. Cotton made in Africa implies added value and a win-situation for all parties involved – producers, textile companies and naturally for the end customer, too.

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