This month marks the beginning of PAN's work with schools of fashion and textile design across Europe. Do not miss the opportunity to meet Barnabas Paul, an organic cotton farmer from Benin. Barnabas will come to Europe to explain, in his own words, how organic cotton has transformed the lives of his community.

In this month's newsletter, you will also find out why some insects are farmer's best friends. Finally the good news we all have been waiting for: organic cotton production increased by 50% this year!

1. West African organic cotton farmer to visit fashion schools

PAN will visit next month several schools of fashion and textile design across Europe, and inform students about the benefits of organic cotton, and how they can adopt sustainable practices when sourcing raw materials. Barnabas Paul, an organic cotton farmer from Benin, West Africa, will join our panel of experts in the UK and France and explain, in his own words, to the designers of tomorrow how organic cotton has transformed the lives of his family and community.

Germany: 30th Oct. to 7th Nov.
France: 8th to 10th Nov.
UK: 12th to 16th Nov.

In the UK and France, the event will include:

Screening of Moral Fibre: Organic Cotton

A documentary film about the impact of cotton production in West Africa, including interviews from cotton farmers, designer Katharine Hamnett, and local doctors.

Talks from our panel of experts

• Barnabas Paul (pictured), organic cotton farmer in Kandi, a small rural town North of Benin
• Dr Davo Vodouhê, coordinator of pioneering organic cotton project in Benin
• Abigail Garner Petit, Founder and Director or organic and fair trade cotton company Gossypium (selected dates only)
• Mo Tomaney, MA ethical fashion at Epsom and research fellow in fashion and ethics at Central St Martins (selected dates only)
• Damien Sanfilippo, cotton project coordinator at PAN UK

Q&A session with our panel

And more...

• PAN UK will launch and present its mini-grant programme for students of fashion design (see next article)
• Students will receive PAN UK's new booklet Organic by Design, a 48-page guide packed with useful information and tips from pioneer organic cotton designers.
• Several organic cotton fabric sample books will be on display, with over 90 styles available to purchase by the meter.

Learn more ...

2. Sponsorship for students of fashion design

PAN UK launches its mini-grant programme Organic by Design. We are offering to support selected final year fashion design students who wish to use organic cotton as part of their graduate collection. The aim is to encourage and support students to showcase the creative potential for organic cotton products in the fashion world - both in the academic arena and beyond it into the industry.

Up to 10 grants of up to £250 each are available.

Are you a student of fashion design in your final year, or do you know someone who is? Click here to learn how to apply.

3. Friendly bugs at the rescue of organic cotton

Organic cotton farmers need all the help their can get from their natural environment in order grow their cotton efficiently, and without the use of expensive and toxic pesticides. Farmers rely to a great extent on the activity of beneficial insects: they are farmer's best friends. These insects are either predatory (they feed on pests), or parasitic (they destroy pests "from the inside"). In conventional agriculture, the use of insecticides unfortunately disrupts the activity of these natural enemies of pests.

Support staff Flavien Koumassegbo help farmers identify pests and beneficial insect

PAN UK and its partner OBEPAB in West Africa are looking for ways to better utilize these friendly bugs. With financial assistance from British organic cotton company Cut4Cloth, and the JA Clark Charitable Trust, PAN UK is working with organic cotton farmers in Benin, and Dr Mensah, an award winning entomologist, to investigate an innovative pest management method: the use of a food spray to attract beneficial insects onto cotton fields.

This method is cost effective and efficient. It does not damage the environment: better still, it restores natural processes, and promotes biodiversity. In combination with many other natural pest and soil management methods developed by farmers themselves, in particular the use of refuge crops to host beneficial insects, this method constitutes a sustainable alternative to inappropriate technologies such as toxic pesticides and expensive GM varieties.

Participating farmers and field support staff were trained to identify pests and beneficial insects, and learned how to scientifically sample them. The first stage of this 3 years project is showing promising results: when using the food spray, farmers observe more beneficial insects, and fewer pests. Preliminary results also show that despite a slightly lower yield than on neighbouring conventional fields, farmers obtained a much better gross margin. This year, farmers are experimenting with several food sprays made from locally sourced products, and assessing their effectiveness in combination with various refuge crops. Next year, more farmers will be trained in insect identification, and a wider scientific evaluation of the method's impacts on productivity and income will be carried out.

A Damsel bug, a beneficail instects which prey on pests, is attacrted to a cotton plant by the food spray

Cut4Cloth sponsors PAN UK's work in Africa through the scheme One Percent for the Planet, an alliance of companies that recognize the true cost of doing business and donate 1% of their sales to environmental charities. You can learn more here, and support PAN's work in Africa.

4. Organic Cotton production grows by 49%

The good news we all have been waiting for have finally arrived: organic cotton production for the 2006/2007 crop year has increased by 49%! The latest Fibre Report from the US-based Organic Exchange reveals that 58,000 tonnes of certified organic cotton were produced last year, compared to 38,000 tones the previous year. There are currently 67 known active organic cotton farming projects around the world.

The report also includes, for the first time, estimates for the amount of land in organic cotton cultivation globally, as well as the number of farming families involved. The Organic Exchange estimate that 100,000 households are now involved in organic cotton farming.

Based on these data, as well as historical data published by PAN UK, we are now able have a clear overview of the organic cotton production's dramatic expansion since it began in the late 1980's

The chart illustrates the birth of the organic cotton sector in the early 90's with the technical success of many pioneering projects around the globe. It also shows the stagnation that resulted since the mid 90's from the lack of market access. During this period many organic cotton projects were selling their cotton on the conventional market, for lack of demand. In 2002 PAN UK published a series of reports illustrating the feasibility of organic cotton and the social benefits it was bringing to farmers, and along with several other development organisations and pioneering companies called for a global scaling up of production. Networking activities with the industry, and awareness raising in Europe and North America led to the dramatic growth experienced since 2003.

This year new projects were identified in Australia, China, Greece, India, Peru, Spain, Turkey, Syria, Malawi and Uganda. While Turkey and India remain the biggest producers, it appears that China is rapidly catching up. Extra Long Staple (ELS) organic cotton was also grown in India, Turkey, Peru, Egypt, the USA and Israel, and accounts for a significant 8% of organic cotton production.

However the report highlights several areas concern about the way the market is progressing, and makes several recommendations in order to ensure farmers continue to benefit from the sector.

PANUK believes that the organic cotton sector is now facing its greatest challenge to date, as it enters the mass market. Huge orders placed by giant retailers provide great opportunities to expand the sector and benefit farmers. However they could also overwhelm the fledging industry with their own agenda. Will the giant players continue to use the ethical and equitable trading practices set up by the organic cotton pioneers, or will they try to replicate the unfair practices that they often impose on their suppliers? We will offer our point of view in next issue of WearOrganic News with an article untitled "When organic means fair: the case of cotton".

Visit www.organicexchange.org to request a copy of the report Organic Farm and Fiber report 2007

5. British T-shirt manufacturer tackles the Uzbek cotton problem

The report Deadly Chemicals in Cotton, published earlier this year by the Environmental Justice Foundation in collaboration with PAN UK, describes Uzbekistan as arguably the major cotton producing country most severely affected by pesticides. Cotton production in this country also has a huge negative impact on water resources. However the most pressing issue may be to put an end to wide-scale forced child labour, as highlighted by BBC's NewsNight programme last week.

Continental Clothing Company, which recently committed to move toward 100% organic cotton, has also begun a major initiative, in collaboration with the EJF, to help stop child slavery in Uzbekistan.

Continental is simply following the advice of the EJF and PAN UK, and has begun to label all their garments with the 'Country of Origin' of the cotton (normally it is the country of manufacture of the garment which is shown on the label), in order to assure consumers that the cotton does not originate from Uzbekistan, which is the world's second largest exporter of raw cotton.

Director of Continental Clothing, Philip Charles states, "Why am I really doing this? As a large user of cotton, and with our influential position in the T-shirt industry, Continental Clothing has an opportunity, even if not a responsibility, to raise awareness and promote consumer action on issues where we feel strongly - such as the state orchestrated child slavery in Uzbekistan"

PAN UK joins the EJF and Continental Clothing and asks other apparel manufacturers to follow suit, and do the same. "If this happens", says Philip Charles, "we can create a snowball effect and force change through economic pressure".

Increased transparency is the key to put ethics and sustainability back into cotton production. Country of origin labelling is therefore highly desirable for cotton fibre.

For more information go to Continental's website

PAN UK has also collaborated with Continental Clothing to produce a Turkish version of the Guide "My Sustainable T-Shirt". According to Philip Charles, this guide is a great tool to educate manufacturers about organic agriculture, because "despite spending 20 years manufacturing cotton clothing, my Turkish suppliers know about as much about organic cotton as I did 2 years ago".

The guide will soon be available on PAN UK's website.