There’s no two ways about it; Organic cotton is expensive compared to non-organic. A non-organic calico can cost as little as £0.65 a metre whereas the Organic Fairtrade calico that Bristol Recycled buys is £2.77 metre.

However, there are hidden costs of using a non-organic calico that we, as a business, want to avoid. Over two-thirds of the world’s cotton is grown in developing countries and the former Soviet Union with a value of over $30 billion every year. This market isn’t supporting the rural farmers that produce the cotton, it’s exploiting them and their families.

An estimated 20,000 agricultural workers a year die from pesticide poisoning; each year hundreds of thousands of children in central Asia, India and West Africa are forced to work in cotton fields for little or no pay; vast swathes of important habitat and ecosystems have been obliterated by heavy pesticide use; land has been sucked dry of water all over the developing world in order to produce cheap fabric for the Western markets.

Why is Organic Fairtrade cotton better?

Organic cotton production is the only farming system by which cotton is produced entirely free of chemical pesticides - and thereby without the risks that such chemicals pose to human health and the environment.

Instead of pesticides, natural predator populations are nurtured within cotton production zones and measures such as intercropping and crop rotation are used to halt the development of cotton pest populations.

The Fairtrade certification secures better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay sustainable prices (which must never fall lower than the market price), Fairtrade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives.

In short this means the people producing Fairtrade Organic Calico do not get subjected to poisonous and harmful chemicals, children are not used to produce the fabrics or collect the fibre, all producers are paid a fair wage, the land is given a chance to replenish itself naturally through crop rotation and organic fertilisers, the environment isn’t harmed by the use of destructive pesticides.

For more information on cotton production go to www.ejfoundation.org/page141.html and watch the documentary White Gold: The True Cost of Cotton.