Fairtrade

What is the Fairtrade guarantee?

Fairtrade guarantees producer organisations a fair and stable price for their products that covers their costs and enables them to support their families and invest in a better future.

What is the FAIRTRADE Label?

The FAIRTRADE Label is an independent consumer label which appears on a range of retail and catering products as a guarantee that disadvantaged farmers and workers in the developing world are getting a better deal.

Benefits of Fairtrade

We think its all about the people, heres what one cotton farmer has to say.

"I did not get any education but I want my children to and the Fairtrade price means I can send them to school." - Laljibhai Narranbhai, cotton farmer, India.

Millions of farmers depend on selling their crops to survive but it’s a risky business. When prices drop it can spell disaster. If they earn less than it costs to run their farm, they face real hardship – struggling to buy food or keep their children in school. Ultimately they may lose their land and their livelihood. Fairtrade guarantees a fair and stable price which covers their costs and enables them to invest in a better future.

About Our Fairtrade and Organic Supply Chain

Why grow organic cotton?

In conventional farming synthetic pesticides and fertilizers are being used. Cotton cultivation is one of the most intensive crops, using almost 60% of all toxic chemicals produced in India. This causes pollution of soil and ground water, but also diseases among farmer and laborer families (eyes and skin diseases and sometimes even cancer). Besides the environmental and health problems, social problems are also created. Farmers who use artificial pesticides and fertilizers will often exhaust their soils. This results in a need for more pesticides to ensure the same yield. As farmers in India need loans to pay their inputs, this situation often leads to a negative spiral of pesticide usage and debt. Organic agriculture rests on balancing economic profit and safety of the natural environment. Crops are cultivated using inputs which are provided by Mother Nature, without compromising on the quality of the products.

Organic cotton cultivation and Fairtrade.

Rajlakshmi Cotton Mills will source 70% of its organic cotton in 2006-2007 from the Chetna project. A total of 1,500 farmers are currently involved in Chetna. Chetna Organic began in 2004 with funding support from Solidaridad & ICCO in the Netherlands and is managed by ETC, in Hyderabad, India. Chetna is a Fairtrade certified project. This implies many benefits to participating farmers.

Fairtrade certification coupled with organic certification ensures that the cotton farmer is protected from price fluctuations in the world market and is paid approximately 60% above the price of conventional cotton, a premium which is almost 20% more than the price of non fair-trade certified organic cotton. An additional 15% premium goes to the group itself and is used to further social, economic and environmental development in the farmer’s village. The price received by farmers through fair-trade market arrangements is ensuring an enhanced standard of living for these farmers.

Fairtrade certified farmers and farmer groups under Chetna receive support and training through adaptive farmer field schools (FFS), which are discovery based and where farmers share and learn from each other. In the FFS, they are coached and supported on ensuring production quality & quantity through low cost technologies, access to: institutional credit, quality infrastructure & extension services, indulging in group certification processes, collective bargaining & marketing of all their farm produce through a sustainable & socially responsible public-private-partnership channel, entrepreneurship development, combining efforts with volumes & being active business partners in the supply chain rather than depending on individual payments from manipulative and exploitative traders & money lenders and holding equity in a national level farmers’ owned and controlled company/association (Chetna) and supply chain.

The FT premium allows establishment of a community revolving credit fund that provides short-term loans so that borrowing from money lenders at exorbitant interest rates is avoided.

Chetna Organic Cotton Project is expected to grow to include 17,000 farmers by 2010 and produce 20% of the organic cotton grown in India. Within a year or two, it is expected to become one of the largest organic and FT cotton project in the world.

Internal Control.

An internal Control System is maintained with detailed documentation and track and trace procedures for all inputs and outputs. Farmer monitors are supported in internal inspection and data verification. Chetna Organic is certified by SKAL International and FLO Cert.

Together with Rajlakshmi Cotton Mills (Kolkata), cotton quality is improved through contamination free picking, storage and quality wise incentives.

Fairtrade Presentations

We love getting out and talking about Fairtrade and why we think its important, if you would like us to visit your school, group or church contact us and we'll see what we can arrange, we are working on a number presentations for different types of groups.