The Hindu : Front Page : Efforts on to promote organic cotton

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 04, 2006
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Efforts on to promote organic cotton

M. Soundariya Preetha

COIMBATORE: A garment made of organic cotton in India is shipped to a buyer in Europe. The consumer who buys it wants to check out on the raw material used. He can do so by typing out the garment code on a designated website.

The details of the farmer, the farm, the mill, the processing and the garment unit can be seen on the website - all these made possible by the Track and Trace programme of the United States-based Organic Exchange.

The programme builds customer confidence, gives transparency to the entire production process, and makes the farmer visible to the end consumer, says Simon Ferrigno, Director, Farm Development Programme of Organic Exchange. This is one of the efforts of the exchange to promote organic cotton. It has a handful of users in India too.

Super Spinning Mills from Coimbatore has been under the programme for the last one year and "this has helped build the confidence of the buyers," says K.R. Seethapathy, its executive director.

The demand for organic cotton is growing more than 100 per cent and hence the production keeps growing. Of the total annual global production of 32,000 tonnes, India contributes about 10,000 tonnes, says Mr. Ferrigno.

Working as a facilitator with cotton growers and the market, the exchange plans to launch a website, which will be a database of research material, photos and videos. It will be a multi-lingual site so that cotton growers in different countries can share information. "Probably this will be ready in two months." India currently had about 10 major players who are into organic cotton production. The exchange has initiated a dialogue with retailers here too.

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