The Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF), known for cotton standards such as Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) and Cotton made in Africa Organic, has once again published its annual aggregated report on the verification and implementation of CmiA. This summarises the results of independent verifications of CmiA standards and thus offers the public transparency into the process.

The published figures pertain to the production of CmiA and CmiA Organic cotton during the last season. In 2023, 23 verifications were conducted at 20 cotton companies in eleven countries south of the Sahara; 13 at field level and ten in cotton ginneries, which represent the first step in processing the raw material. A total of 22 verifiers from Ecocert from Burkina Faso and Africert from Kenya conducted the verifications.

20 partnering cotton companies

After successfully passing the first verification cycle, a company from Uganda became a new CmiA Organic partner in 2023, bringing the number of cotton companies verified according to CmiA and CmiA Organic to 20: Odepab and Sedoco from Benin; Faso Coton and Sofitex from Burkina Faso; Sodecoton from Cameroon; Cotontchad from Chad; CIDT, COIC, Ivoire Coton and Seco from Cote d’Ivoire; San JFS from Mozambique; ArewaCotton from Nigeria; Alliance Ginneries and Biosustain from Tanzania; NSCT from Togo; MMP Agro from Uganda and Alliance Ginneries, CGL (Parrogate), HCT (Parrogate) and LDC Zambia from Zambia.

At the same time, the partnership with a cotton company from Nigeria expired at the end of December 2023. In Benin, Tanzania and Zambia, several cotton companies are in the on-boarding process, with some having already undergone the first verification at field level or at the level of the ginning factories.

In the 2022/2023 season, around 900,000 CmiA cotton farmers worked 1.7 million hectares of land in accordance with CmiA or CmiA Organic, producing a total of approximately 508,000 tonnes of ginned cotton for the global textile industry, which is enough cotton for around a billion t-shirts according to the organisation.

Results

All cotton companies achieved results ranging from “good” to “very good” for all four of CmiA’s sustainability pillars: management, people, planet, and prosperity. “Verification results showed that partners had made significant improvements since 2022, for instance earning excellent scores in terms of small-scale farmers’ access to high-quality inputs and to pre-financing for the same as well as in terms of cotton fibre quality,” states an AbtF press release.

Requirements for transparency in the supply chain, for example compliance with the traceability of CmiA cotton, a transparent classification and payment system for seed cotton and timely payments to CmiA contract farmers, were also rated as ‘excellent’.

CmiA Organic cotton farmer in Tanzania. Credits: Malicky Boaz for CmiA

Dignified working conditions and support for small-scale farmers were evaluated as “very good”, due in part to the emphasis placed on protecting the rights and health of employees and labourers through appropriate working hours. Regarding environmental aspects, CmiA cotton continues to be cultivated strictly without genetically modified seeds and without irrigation using surface water or groundwater.

“Verifications ensure the credibility of our standards. The latest results clearly show that our close collaboration with local partners, some of whom we have worked with for years, is making cotton cultivation in Africa better and more attractive in the long term. Through our wide and varied training programme, we will continue doing everything we can to build up the adaptability and resilience of small-scale farmers and their systems,” comments Elena Wahrenberg, CmiA verification manager at the Aid by Trade Foundation, in the press release.

The exact results by sustainability area and the respective principles as well as further details such as training topics and participant numbers can be found in the complete report, which is accessible via the CmiA website.