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Original image ©Simon Rawles

Yoga wear: The European launch of Fairtrade

Copyright © Crown copyright 2001. Reproduced from the original article featured in Developments magazine: Fair-trade cotton hits the high street, (http://www.developments.org.uk/data/issue34/Fair-trade-cotton.htm).

Fairly traded cotton is increasingly in demand… (Louise Tickle)

The cotton field is searingly hot in the midday sun, but the three women bent double in the shimmering heat haze simply keep on picking. They must, because here on the flat plains of Kutch in Gujerat, the crop will only be in optimal condition for a brief window of time. Harvesting the fluffy bolls at their best is essential to securing a good price for the soft white heap that is growing steadily higher in the outhouse nearby.

The women move carefully among the plants, deftly nipping each boll at the stem before placing it inside the sling bag carried behind them. Colour has been bleached out of this dry landscape, but the women themselves look like moving jewels. One wears a sari in pink, turquoise and yellow, another drapes her head with a scarf of scarlet and purple, the third wears a brilliant green overdress embroidered in gold. Despite the stupefying heat, they will carry on picking till the light fails, and tomorrow they will start again.

This hot, dusty field is the start of a supply chain that ends with a customer choosing which T-shirt, jeans or underwear to buy among the myriad styles, labels and prices available. These agricultural workers are among the luckier ones - their family's cotton will be bought by Agrocel, an Indian agricultural outreach organisation that pays a Fairtrade price and markets the fibre on their behalf. Cotton prices are in long-term decline, falling to an all time low in the 2001/02 season. Usually in rural villages, farmers must accept whatever the local dealer offers, as nobody else is likely to make a trip so far off the beaten track to give them a better price.

Despite the rampant onward march of man-made fibres, cotton remains a fashion industry staple. Yet, whether it's a pair of £150 designer jeans or a three quid T-shirt at Tesco, until recently there has been no independent guarantee of the ethics of the clothes we buy - either on the high street or from small fashion brands claiming to trade fairly. Though the UK's Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) - to which many big high-street stores subscribe - is based on International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards, membership is voluntary. Adherence to the guidelines is self-monitored, and as a recent report by Ethical Consumer magazine points out, the scheme's success depends on companies maintaining their ethical commitment. It cites the example of Littlewoods, which in 2003 pulled out of the ETI and disbanded its entire ethical trading team.

The award last November of the Fairtrade Mark to ten UK companies - including People Tree, Gossypium, Bishopston Trading, La Redoute and Hug - has dramatically changed the fashion retail scene. And the European launch of Fairtrade accreditation for cotton last year meant that farmers experienced a twelve-fold rise in demand.

Testament to the power of the Fairtrade Mark is the fact that Marks & Spencer decided to join the party with the launch of its Fairtrade cotton socks and T-shirts in March 2005. Sales went so well that the store has extended its range to knickers and jeans. Top Shop too used Fairtrade Fortnight in 2005 to pilot a concession stocked with clothing by fairtrade fashion label People Tree. Sales went through the roof.
All this means that small-scale producers from four countries (India, Mali, Peru and Senegal) can now sell at least some of their crop for a guaranteed Fairtrade price based on the cost of production. Added to this is an extra 'social premium', used to benefit the whole community.

And with farmers given confirmed orders in advance of planting they can plan ahead - pre-finance is offered so they can afford to buy the seed and tools needed to cultivate their land. None of this is high-tech or expensive - simple changes can make a big impact. Arriving at 60 year-old Khimji Bhai's smallholding in the village of Bhimasar, we are ushered past a broken-down shed sheltering three white cows from the afternoon glare. Mr Bhai points proudly at two brand new plastic tanks nearby and insists with a grin that we take a look inside. Our nostrils are assaulted by the stench of urine steaming in the sun.

Gasping, we back off to general laughter, and it is explained that the tanks have been bought with some of the Fairtrade money earned from last season's sales. Pipes collect urine from the family's cattle which is routed to the containers, then sprayed on the cotton plants as an organic insect repellent and a fertilizer. Selling on Fairtrade terms means that Mr Bhai's small-holding has instantly become more self-sufficient.
Women too are likely to benefit from Fairtrade cotton sales. In India's most remote and poorest villages, the opportunities for women to earn any form of independent income are almost nil. But in Bhutakiya, a village a few more bumpy miles down the road, the residents 'premium committee' recently voted to spend the pooled element of the Fairtrade price on new sewing machines. Now, the local women and girls are setting up a garment manufacturing business.

From the viewpoint of the individual cotton farmer, then, Fairtrade sales seem like the way to go, and indeed the numbers selling their crop to Agrocel are rising fast. But when you see a swing-tag sporting the Fairtrade logo, how far can you be sure that endorsement goes? Can the responsible fashionista now flex her plastic without bending her conscience? It turns out that between the cotton boll and the consumer lie manufacturing processes that are not subject to Fairtrade criteria. Indeed, the Fairtrade Foundation, which awards the Mark, is scrupulously careful to say that it is only the cotton fibre itself that is approved.

It's no secret that the fashion industry has been plagued by criticism of its sourcing and manufacturing. The problem, says Martin Hearson of Labour Behind The Label, is that high street purchasing practices require the lowest price and the fastest turnaround. Garment workers are paid a pittance, overtime is enforced to meet last minute orders for catwalk copies, and pressured working conditions can become so unsafe that campaigners allege employees have died in factory fires. And given that conventional cotton production takes 25% of all agro-chemicals used on the planet, there are significant health implications for the farmers who grow it.

However, of the first ten companies to be awarded the Fairtrade Mark, several have pushed for better conditions for cotton farmers, spinners, dyers and stitchers in developing countries as their very raison d'etre. Their founders have worked in painstaking detail with worker-co-operatives and factories to establish good practices right along the cotton supply chain. Safia Minney, owner of People Tree, whose clothes are worn by Sienna Miller and Minnie Driver, says she does not even feel that ILO standards are high enough to make a garment fully Fairtrade, and insists that her company aims beyond this benchmark.
Gossypium, well-known for its yoga and baby clothes, has taken its championing of good working practices a step further, by brokering a relationship between Agrocel and its newest, biggest customer, M&S. This small farmer's outreach organisation in rural Gujerat now supplies the UK giant with all the cotton for its Fairtrade socks and T-shirts.

When a company as big as Marks & Spencer decides to place an order, the volumes involved immediately balloon - more farmers are needed to supply more cotton, and fast. Shailesh Patel, general manager at Agrocel, says that explaining Fairtrade principles to farmers in isolated tribal villages has taken considerable effort, but now that results are evident in the better prices being paid, more are coming on board.
Much of Agrocel's work aims to help farmers improve the quality of their crop: high standards and consistency are crucial. "Agrocel chooses the best fields, and gins the bolls (removes the fluffy cotton fibre) separately, collects the seed and then sells it back to the farmers," says Patel. "This means they get the best seed available".

Martin Hearson suggests that, "to effect real change there has to be a sector-wide approach. One company on its own can find it hard competitively to take the initiative". But M&S and Top Shop have benefited from being first off the blocks - both stores have gained massive media exposure based on their initial forays into Fairtrade. But does their so-far limited commitment mean that ethical fashion has made it into the mainstream? The biggest barrier to Fairtrade clothing going mainstream may be structural. The high-street fashion industry prides itself on instant responsiveness to trends and requires garments to be ultra-cheap and disposable. This will never fit with the Fairtrade ethos of long-term trading relationships, pre-ordering, paying a better price for raw materials and non-exploitation of workers right along the supply chain.

If you need a fashion fix that doesn't involve T-shirts, knickers, babygros or jeans however, what are your options? "There are good people and bad people to buy from," says Martin Hearson. "And what Labour Behind The Label is saying is that you need to write to the companies and engage with them. It does have an impact - any kind of ethical demand pushes them into thinking harder".

Fortunately, fairly traded writing paper is available at www.one-world-is-enough.net Waving your plastic while noisily brandishing your principles may be the way to go - if Marks & Spencer and Topshop can do it, why can't everyone else?

For more information
www.fairtrade.org.uk