C&A Foundation, the corporate foundation of global retailer C&A, on Tuesday jointly hosted ‘Cotton Trailblazers’ event here with the Madhya Pradesh Government highlighting the central state’s global leadership in organic cotton production and cultivation in improving the livelihood of farmers in the state. The event facilitated a dialogue between stakeholders of the organic cotton supply chain on working collaboratively to build a robust and resilient organic cotton sector.
It was attended by government representatives including policy-makers and members from academia; stakeholders from across the organic cotton supply chain including representatives of international brands and retailers as well as a large numbers of organic cotton farmers; all of whom applauded the initiatives of the Madhya Pradesh Government in creating a favourable policy environment for organic cotton cultivation in the state. The speakers highlighted the challenges the sector was facing and called on stakeholders to work collaboratively towards building a prosperous value chain for organic cotton that benefits everyone from farm to store farmers, manufacturers, brands, research institutes, and civil society. Speaking about the event, Anita Chester, Head Sustainable Raw Materials of C&A Foundation said, “Madhya Pradesh is the leader in India’s organic farm output and a global leader in the production of organic cotton. This needs to be celebrated. We also need to make note of the many challenges that present themselves in the sector so there is much still to be done. This event highlights that it is the collective and focused effort from all stakeholders of the organic cotton ecosystem in the state, brands, retailers, supply chain actors, civil society members, academicians and the state government, that need to come together and support the real heroes of this sector – the organic cotton farmer.
”We, at the C&A Foundation, are delighted to be partnering the government and will continue to foster this collaboration of different stakeholders so that both the organic cotton sector and the farmers who are part of it continue to flourish and keep the flag of both, Madhya Pradesh and India flying high.”Mr Gaurishankar Bisen, Madhya Pradesh Minister for Farmer Welfare & Agriculture Development said, “Under Chief Minister Shivraj Singh’s vision, we are not only committed to promoting organic cotton, but also have set in place institutional mechanisms for its advancements. Today, organic cotton is cultivated in over two lakh hectare of land in Madhya Pradesh. Through this international Summit, we want to encourage farmers to adopt organic cotton farming and hope to organise many more events like this in the future, to create awareness and build enthusiasm amongst farmers for organic farming. We look forward to implement the best practices and learnings we have taken from the various discussions here today and will share it with the farmer communities at large.
He also said that while Madhya Pradesh leads the organic cotton in India, there was a need to do more for the entire cotton sector. ”We have been able to achieve this status because of availability of manure from cattle farming, reduced use of chemical fertilisers and using organic farming techniques at all stages,” he said.
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