Where Better Cotton is Grown

Displaying the countries where over 1.39 million licensed Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) Farmers are currently located and growing BCI Cotton. Click on the country pins to learn more about each programme country.

BCI Cotton is grown across the world, accounting for 23% of global cotton production.

In the 2023-24 cotton season, 1.39 million licensed Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) Farmers grew 5.64 million tonnes of BCI Cotton. However, these farmers are only part of the story. Over the last decade, nearly 4 million people around the world – farmers, farm workers, share croppers – have received training in more sustainable practices, reflecting the diversity of the cotton-growing community that we aim to reach.

A holistic global standard

Where BCI Cotton grows is not only a matter of geography. In Australia, Brazil or the United States, a farm can be an industrial operation. In parts of Africa, India or Pakistan it can be a tiny smallholder working on less than 20 hectares of land. What matters is that as a holistic global standard, wherever BCI Cotton is grown, it satisfies the environmental, economic and social criteria that we have set, so that it can be called BCI Cotton. For the same reason, we also recognise equivalent standards, successfully benchmarked against our own, in Australia, Brazil, Greece, Israel and several African countries.

Reach, scale and impact

With these standards in place, we try to reach as many farmers, workers and farming communities as possible. Our network of local partners put all their know-how and resources at the farmers’ and workers’ disposal. We aim to achieve scale as well as impact and promote BCI Cotton production in as many places as possible.