THE GREAT COTTON STITCH UP
15.11.2010 - The Fairtrade Foundation has published a 40-pages report on the plight of African cotton farmers vis-a-vis the use of subsidies in many industrialised countries, including recommendations for making cotton trade fairer.
With an average GDP per capita of $637, and among the least developed countries on earth, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali (known as the Cotton-4 or C-4) rely on cotton more than any other commodity for their export revenues. These countries produce cotton more cheaply than anywhere else - a competitive advantage that logically should place the C-4 in a prime position to benefit from the world's ever increasing desire for cotton products.
(Fairtrade cotton farmer in Mali)
But a wall of subsidies deployed mainly by four trading power blocks has fatally undermined the C-4's ability to trade their way out of poverty. This report reveals that in the nine years since the Doha Development Round was launched, $47bn has been doled out by the United States, the European Union, China and India to its cotton growers. Over 51% of that $47bn has gone directly to US farmers. This has created, and is still creating, a global price dampening effect.
For the C-4, it is a situation that spells economic ruination. With no subsidies to bail them out, C-4 farmers struggle against insuperable odds to compete and a lack of revenues means also that their governments cannot afford to build roads, ports and other infrastructure to catalyse a garment industry that would employ millions of people and create greater value in a desperately underdeveloped sector.
Read the full report: Part 1 - Part 2
Read the article on the Guardian
