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Happy New Year to all our
readers! In this issue of the WearOrganic newsletter, we bring you stories from Since the last issue of
the WearOrganic Newsletter, there have been changes
in the cotton programme at PAN-UK,
as Damien Sanfilippo has left to
continue good work on ethical clothing and cotton as Product Manager, Cotton
at the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO). This
month, we are joined by Eliza Anyangwe, who will edit this newsletter in the future.
Please email us to suggest
ways in which the newsletter can be improved This issue of the
newsletter is kindly sponsored by MADE-BY and produced with the help of the
Uganda Network on Toxic Free Malaria Control (UNETMAC). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cotton has always been a
valuable foreign exchange earner for It is within this context
that we present an update on the successes and ongoing challenges in cotton
farming in The view from Edun The
Irish fashion brand Edun (http://www.edun-live.com/)
was established in 2005 by U2 front man and campaigner, Bono, and his wife,
Ali Hewson, in collaboration with
A good example of Edun’s commitment not only to great design but also to
the communities where their cotton is grown is the original ONE T-shirt. Every
tee is made from 100% African cotton, sewn together in Edun Live in Phenix Logistics and Lap Textiles, the Ugandan firm which
spins, dyes and manufactures Edun Live’s Edun Live was able to provide that support and
distinctively has shown a commitment to ‘ongoing improvement’ rather than simply
preparing its supplier for snapshot audits which end with the ‘pass/fail’ verdict.
The company has been working with MADE-BY and its parent company Solidaridad to achieve this goal of meeting and improving
social and environmental standards at Phenix.
Who MADE-BY are What MADE-BY do How MADE-BY measures and communicates progress These scorecards are
shared with brands and are published online. MADE-BY also uses innovative
approaches that allow consumers to track garments through the supply chain. http://www.made-by.nl/tracktrace.php?lg=en
How can you identify Made-By garments? A brand that has committed
to improving its social and environmental standards will bear the MADE-BY
‘Blue Button’ label. Brands that have demonstrated significant progress can
use the label across their entire range. MADE-BY AND EDUN MADE-BY has been working
with Edun Live and its Ugandan supplier, Phenix Logistics, since 2007, successfully driving up
social and environmental standards in Edun’s
factory and helping Edun achieve WRAP (Worldwide
Responsible Accredited Production) certification and prove its manufacturing
is lawful, humane and ethical. http://www.wrapcompliance.org/ A report by MADE-BY and Solidaridad enabled Edun’s team
to devise a strategy to raise social standards. As well as insisting on
documented policies and procedures and evidence of their implementation, on
MADE-BY’s advice, Edun Live
also installed a waste water treatment facility which significantly reduced
the factory’s water usage.
Another key to the success
of the relationship between Made-By and Edun Live
was the ability of the former to come up with cost-effective alternatives for
what were considered costly yet essential improvement such as fire,
evacuation and first aid training. For these the Kampala Fire Brigade and Should you have any
questions about MADE-BY and its partnership with Edun,
please contact Allanna McAspurn,
General Manager UK, on 020 7636 3910 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The continuing struggle against DDT use in As previously reported in WearOrganic News, NGOs such as the Uganda Network on
Toxic Free Malaria Control (UNETMAC) are continuing to lobby the National
Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to halt the indoor spraying of DDT
against malarial mosquitoes. Since indoor spraying began in 2007, UNETMAC has
started proceedings against the Ugandan government, on behalf of communities
affected by DDT spraying, on the basis that Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS)
violates the constitutional rights of citizens to a safe and healthy
environment. Concerns that the export
of cash crops such as cotton would be affected by DDT contamination have also
emerged. "While
we are all more than willing to support a program to help us get rid of
malaria, spraying our homes with...DDT will destroy the delicate ecology of
our poverty-torn country." Now, organic farming in
the districts of Oyam and Apac
in Ellady Muyambi identified the
organic farming companies affected by the spraying: Shares (U) Ltd and Bo
Weevil (U) Ltd. The companies could not guarantee their organic certifying
bodies that the produce would be free of DDT and due to the costs, time and
efforts it would take to test the ten of thousands of single farmers’
deliveries made to the storage centre or keep separate until results were
returned, these companies and others such as Dunavant
(U) Ltd, have vowed not to buy anything from the entire area for a period of
20 years or more. As a result, over 50,000
certified organic farmers have lost their income due to the withdrawal of
these companies. This is disastrous news in
an area which is has been unstable for more than 20 years due to the rebel
activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army. During the last few years, a large
number of internally displaced people joined the move to organic farming and
returned to their family-owned land to produce healthy food crops as well as
profitable cash crops. All certified organic cash crops are procured at a
minimum premium price of 15-30%, which benefits the communities and in addition,
there is a farmers’ development fund built up out of sales. These projects
have strongly advocated for the use of intercropping with food and cash crops
and alternative sources of income have been stimulated (e.g. bee keeping,
fish culture and tree planting). An estimated 10,000-11,000
growers in Oyam and Apac
districts have so far been cut off from the organic farming programs and
their benefits as result of DDT IRS. DDT spraying is a major
logistical problem for organic exporters because there is no mapping of the
organic farmers in the two districts and most are scattered in different
places making it difficult to prove that organic cotton came from an area
that had not been sprayed. To make matters worse, farmers with no granaries were
using rooms in their homes to keep their cotton safe from DDT contamination but
in some districts, the coordinators of organic stores were threatened with
arrests for refusing their houses to get sprayed. Many houses were sprayed
even when household items were not removed, and many kitchens were also
contaminated. In Adon
village, in Oyam district, rain forced people to
enter their houses immediately after spraying. Soon after they began to
experience headaches, breathing problems, sneezing, itching skin and
coughing. In the same area, 20 chickens which ate insects after the spraying
also died. A chicken is often worth between 8,000 to 25,000 Ugandan shillings
and rural farmer will own about 25. The death of 20 chickens is therefore a
devastating loss of income and investment. Elsewhere in Abella C and D villages, DDT was sprayed on chilli seeds. In Okerodoti
village, two children died immediately after the spraying of their homes. And in Aweingweic
village, three mothers suffered miscarriages in a period of one week after
spraying their houses, linked to DDT exposure. Though this has been difficult
to prove statistically, the evidence of the risk to human life cannot be
ignored. From the 1960s, DDT was
banned in most countries for agricultural use. According to the Stockholm
Convention, DDT can be used for inside spraying of houses to kill malaria
bearing mosquitoes "only where other methods of control have failed, and
where there is an epidemic". However, an increasing number of countries
in Africa, including Malaria kills over 1
million people a year in On December 9, 2009, the
Ministry of Health in Ellady Muyambi, To learn more about DDT, visit the PAN-UK website http://www.pan-uk.org/ |
