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A story of fair trade market

Written by Marty Dillon

Fairtrade cotton provides not only a fixed price for producers, but also community development and educational programs to teach how to grow plants in sustainable ways. It goes towards life free from pesticides and awful debts.

You have a family. You only want the best for them. You want to provide a good, healthy life, and you want to provide opportunity for your children. Imagine you are subsistence farmer in India. You support your family, just. Then the world’s demand for cotton catches up with your corner of the world, and with the promise of gold at the end of the rainbow you jump on the bandwagon and turn your crops to conventional cotton. But like all rainbows the glory is a transient moving feast, and the pot of gold an illusion. In its place, a slippery side of debt, degradation and family and community breakdown. Common goals, worlds apart.

A study of the conventional cotton farming industry in India is a revealing insight into the global market for cotton and shattering experience according to Marty Dillon, managing director of 3Fish , a promotional merchandise supplier of Fairtrade and earth friendly products . “A $10 T-shirt on the streets of Melbourne suddenly highlights the disparity, and implicates us all” says Marty.

Fairtrade cotton provides a fixed price to the farmers involved in its cultivation. Removing the severity of global market forces that drive the price of cotton down to an extent that makes a $10 T-shirt in Melbourne a profitable exercise, would seem enough to justify the Fairtrade premium in its own right, however that is just scraping the surface of the ripple of good Fairtrade creates.

In Fairtrade “speak” the Fairtrade premium goes toward education , community development, organisation of co-ops, responsible and mostly organic farming, prohibition of genetically modified cotton seed and crop diversification. The stories behind those words are so much more compelling.

Genetically modified seeds

No-one tells that new cotton farmer in India that the industry they have just entered is largely controlled by middlemen and large chemical companies. No-one explains the full implications of the cotton seed they have just planted that has been genetically modified so that it terminates after one season.

There used to be hundreds of varieties of cotton seed available, however companies who “own” the seeds have reduced these down to about 10, modified so that instead of re-seeding year after year, they terminate after one, requiring the cotton farmer to purchase another season of seed, every season.

No-one tells that farmer that the fertilisers that are “required” to grow the seed degrade the soil to the extent that next season and thereafter they will require increasing volumes of the fertilisers at increasing prices to achieve the same or lesser yields.

That farmer is told that certain pesticides are necessary to achieve the yields they require. Many of the farmers can’t read how toxic those chemicals are or the fact that they will not necessarily repel all the bugs they expect. The farmers spray day after day, the chemicals splashing over their skin posing serious health risks, and the winds blow the chemicals onto their food crops, thereby forcing their way into their food chain.

And when one pesticide doesn’t work, the farmer goes back to the same company who sold them the seed, the fertiliser and the other varieties of pesticides to be pointed toward a new stronger chemical. All the while adding to their debt with the trader or middleman.

If a crop fails and they are unable to pay their debt, then the debt cycle begins. They need more seed, more fertiliser, more pesticides, and over time the soil gets worse and their yields decline. More seeds, more fertiliser and more pesticide. More debt. Farmer suicides. A lot of farmer suicides. All to supply the cotton for that $10 T-shirt. Suddenly it really isn’t the latest must have item. It is a millstone around your neck.

The organic farming alternative

One of the absolutely critical ways of turning this caravan of pain around, is to direct the Fairtrade premium into the education of farmers toward organic farming methods.

Instead of being at the mercy of the traders or various middlemen who push a wide variety of products from major chemical companies, Fairtrade organic farming methods enable farmers to take control of their input costs and are also significantly better for the environment. Farmers are shown how to use cow dung and urine as fertiliser, the oil from the indigenous and prolific Neem tree is mixed to make a natural (and free) pesticide and genetically modified seed is banned. Soil quality improves. Yields improve. Farmers receive a fixed price for their crop and debt cycles are halted. Families can be provided for by their own hand, opportunities are created, and communities flourish. The relative prosperity of the Fairtrade organic farmer is noted, and inspires others to change.

It is our responsibility at the other side of the world to embrace the true cost of the production of products, and create a consistent and ongoing market for them. Whenever possible we must choose Fairtrade and look critically at the cost of our goods and stop to consider how can it be that a particular product can be bought at a particular price. In this way we use the same market forces that gave rise to “conventional” cotton to drive growth in a more positive and ethically fair manner.

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More information about this topic in our fashion and clothing and business services sections.

Written by Marty Dillon

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