Better Cotton has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with its programme partner in Tajikistan, Sarob, to strengthen the implementation of the national Better Cotton Programme.
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Better Cotton has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) of India to promote quality, home-grown cotton globally.
Last year, TEXPROCIL teamed up with the Government of India and its Ministry of Textile to launch ‘Kasturi Cotton’, the country’s first-ever branded cotton designed to reflect high-quality fibre.
This collaboration offers the best of both worlds in the cotton sector: with Better Cotton a standard for sustainability and Kasturi a recognised standard1 for fibre quality, this partnership aims to demonstrate that sustainability goes hand-in-hand with high-quality cotton.
Our collaboration with TEXPROCIL will help shine a spotlight on Indian cotton and its impressive credentials. It also creates the opportunity for companies to secure higher prices for the cotton they sell by aligning with both the Better Cotton and Kasturi Cotton standards.
This collaboration unites two critical initiatives: sustainability and higher quality standards. Together, they will elevate Indian cotton and shape the future of cotton production in India.
Better Cotton will help promote Kasturi Cotton by encouraging its network to align with the Kasturi Cotton Standard to demonstrate the high quality of the Better Cotton they sell.
As per the MoU’s terms, TEXPROCIL has committed to providing training to Better Cotton Member gins keen to align with the Kasturi Cotton programme. It will also highlight Better Cotton’s mission among its network of more than 2,000 companies across India’s textile manufacturing regions to drive engagement with the sustainability initiative.
Better Cotton can in turn look to engage more cotton gins across India, outline the benefits of sourcing more sustainable cotton and aim to boost uptake within the country’s supply chains.
The pair will collaboratively develop a series of workshops for cotton gins across the country both to educate around sustainability in cotton production and outline the benefits of alignment with their respective programmes.
Better Cotton is celebrating one year since the launch of Better Cotton Traceability, its revolutionary system designed to transform supply chain transparency.
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Better Cotton Pakistan has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with textile manufacturing giant Mahmood Group and government research body, the Central Cotton Research Institute (CCRI), to collectively promote the production and uptake of Better Cotton across the country.
Over the next three years, the Mahmood Group will fund Better Cotton’s training of CCRI as it helps the institute become an official Better Cotton Programme Partner1, enhancing its ability to support sustainable cotton production on a larger scale.
Through this collaboration, it will support almost 8,000 cotton farmers across the Multan district of Pakistan, boosting resources and support available in the country after it faced major setbacks. In the 2022/23 cotton season, devastating floods wiped out more than 40% of the country’s cotton crop.
Pakistan’s cotton farming communities have shown remarkable resilience to bounce back from the floods of 2022. We are committed to a nationwide rebuild to ensure that Pakistan once again stands proud as one of the world’s leading cotton producers, and this partnership with Mahmood Group and the CCRI will be instrumental to achieving that.
Additionally, the partnership with the Mahmood Group and CCRI will help promote the production and uptake of more sustainable cotton through joint advocacy and communications efforts, specifically planned engagement with cotton farming communities and government bodies.
I am thrilled to share the partnership with Better Cotton in this sustainability journey. Mahmood Group is a leading textile manufacturer, shares commitment to sustainability and excellence. With decades of experience and expertise, our company has served as a trusted partner in the cotton industry.
Pakistan’s cotton sector is facing multiple challenges that include the climate change, poor market systems as well as low productivity with high input costs. The programme, through this MoU, puts great value in the cotton sector and we are determined to play a vibrant role for the improvement of cotton.
1. Programme Partners work with farming communities to ensure they are producing cotton that meets the Better Cotton Standard.
Read moreBetter Cotton has announced that it will pilot a new wage sampling tool across Pakistan’s cotton sector to capture accurate worker wages and boost wage transparency.
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Better Cotton has launched an ambitious research project in India aimed at defining best practices to empower women and boost their representation at the farm level in the cotton sector.
The project – funded by sustainability standards organisation ISEAL – will not only identify real-success stories that can serve as inspiration for targeted interventions, but it will also generate learnings that will benefit cotton farming countries around the world.
Women play a vital role in India’s cotton farming regions, but they continuously face significant barriers to advance their positions. These challenges stem from cultural and societal barriers, including limited access to education, restrictions on independent travel and unpaid domestic and care work that disproportionately falls on them.
Women form the foundation of cotton farming communities across India, but too often are their contributions unrecognised and unrewarded. This research project will help underpin our women’s empowerment efforts in the country by studying what does and what does not work.
Over the next year, Better Cotton will work closely with two in-country Programme Partners1, Cotton Connect India and WWF India, who together support more than 125,000 Better Cotton licensed farmers across Maharashtra and Telangana.
The aim is to gain insights into their recruitment strategies and retain more women into organisational leadership roles. As part of the process, community-facing roles – such as Producer Unit Managers and Field Facilitators – have been identified as an area for investment and strengthening.
The results will help Better Cotton develop and streamline mechanisms for supporting women in cotton as it works towards its 2030 Impact Target2 on women’s empowerment.
We want to strengthen the women in community facing organisational roles because that’s one of the best pathways to empower women in farming roles. It’s a unique supportive relationship – bringing technical knowledge, safe space, inspiration and modelling all together. Since they are from the same communities, women facilitators carry a deep understanding of the challenges women farmers and cultivators battle with. Because they are also the ones who are agronomic experts on the field, their presence speaks volumes about what is possible for women in farming communities.
Our experience shows that women have a natural affinity for learning and adopting nature-positive agricultural practices. With dedicated women learning groups, full-time training sessions, and seasonal workshops, we are laying the groundwork for continuous progress. This research project has the potential to guide us in refining these efforts, creating new innovations, and further empowering women in cotton cultivation. It will also open up opportunities for scaling these practices, making sustainable cotton farming a widespread reality in Telangana and beyond.
Female staff members contribute valuable skills especially indigenous knowledge and perspectives, enhancing the overall effectiveness of agricultural initiatives. Furthermore, their presence fosters a supportive network of female peers, which is instrumental in empowering women in the field. This gender balance promotes equitable decision-making processes and leads to more adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, thereby improving livelihoods within the sector.
1 Programme Partners work with cotton farming communities to help ensure they produce cotton in compliance with the Better Cotton Standard System (BCSS) and its Principles & Criteria (P&C).
2 By 2030, Better Cotton has committed to reaching one million women in cotton with programmes and resources that promote equal farm decision-making, build climate resilience, or support improved livelihoods. This is in addition to ensuring that 25% of field staff are women with the power to influence sustainable cotton production.
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Better Cotton has launched a new programme in Benin to support the production of more sustainable cotton in West Africa.
The programme will aim to engage more than 200,000 smallholder cotton farmers in order to embed sustainable farming practices, improve livelihoods and help them adapt to the effects of climate change.
As Better Cotton’s presence across Africa continues to grow, so too does the movement towards more sustainable cotton production. There is incredible appetite for change on the continent and we’ll work with partners new and old to leverage that.
The Interprofessional Cotton Association of Benin (AIC) will serve as a Strategic Partner for the Better Cotton Programme. The AIC manages both farming and cotton ginning bodies and more broadly facilitates relations with the sector’s stakeholders across Benin.
As Strategic Partner, the AIC will lead the establishment and implementation of an impactful Better Cotton Programme and help drive engagement with the country’s farming communities and other stakeholders.
The start of a Better Cotton Programme in Benin is a matter of national initiative supported by the entire cotton sector and managed by the Interprofessional Cotton Association. The implementation of this programme will help our valiant producers strengthen their resilience by introducing more sustainable production practices.
The agreement was formalised at a multistakeholder meeting in Cotonou, Benin, on 8 October where both organisations met to discuss the opportunities and challenges in cotton farming and agriculture more broadly.
Benin is Africa’s second largest cotton producing country after Mali. In the 2022/23 season, it produced more than 580,000 metric tonnes (MT) of cotton, according to government figures.
Better Cotton operates programmes across Africa in Mozambique, Egypt, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire.
Read moreBetter Cotton CEO Alan McClay takes a look at his key highlights from our 2023-24 Annual Report in this blog.
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