The Organic Cotton Accelerator (OCA) has announced a strategic cooperation with the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles. The aim of this collaboration is to promote the creation of fair and transparent supply chains from organic cotton farmers to consumers. By combining efforts, the collaboration will mobilise and support a growing number of brands and retailers in taking action in their own supply chains and deliver tangible benefits to organic farmers, such as better prices, secure offtake for their organic cotton and access to organic seeds and training. The aim is to foster the availability of organic cotton for the entire supply chain, while increasing the positive impact of organic cotton on people, planet and prosperity at the farm-level.
This cooperation focuses on the following areas:
- Increase awareness and knowledge of brands, retailers and farmers on practical approaches and solutions to improve the availability and impact of organic cotton.
- Share resources and capacity building for small-scale farmers for efficient and beneficial cultivation of organic cotton.
- Jointly develop supporting tools for brands and retailers to provide relevant information for sustainable sourcing.
Through this commitment, OCA will be contributing to the joint goal of the Partnership members to increase their share of sustainable cotton: By 2025, the share of sustainable cotton is to be increased to a total of 70 per cent and the proportion of organic cotton contained in it to 20 per cent.
Bart Vollaard , Executive Director, OCA said, “At OCA, we support farm-level interventions because we believe that by supporting the farmer, we strengthen the sector and we safeguard the planet. For this positive effect to be fully realised; we need commitment and collaboration across the whole sector. The Partnership for Sustainable Textiles understands the power of collaboration and knows that by pooling forces, their members can use their combined strengths to initiate broader change in production countries.”
He added, “With this strategic cooperation, we aim to mobilise and support more brands and retailers in taking direct action in their own supply chains to secure their organic cotton at the farm level and deliver tangible benefits to farmers, such as better prices and secure offtake for their organic cotton and access to organic seeds and training. By working in unison, we can achieve so much more than acting alone.”
Jürgen Janssen, Head of the Partnership Secretariat commented, “The market for certified organic cotton poses one of the mysteries in our efforts for a fairer and more sustainable textiles and garment industry: Brands and retailers say they struggle to get their hands on the material whilst many farmers complain that they have to sell their organic produce through conventional channels without any premiums. By entering into a strategic cooperation with OCA, the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles strives to increase the leverage for change in organic cotton supply chains to solve this mystery and increase production and availability of certified organic cotton. Building more and stronger links between supply and demand plays an important role in this endeavour as this will reduce risk at farm level thus enabling more small-scale farmers to convert their production to organic and sell their produce at a premium.”
