THE Australian cotton industry's efforts to improve its practices and reputation since the contamination scandals of the 1990s have ramped up in the past 18 months.
The industry is now working in partnerships with leading global clothing brands and retailers to tell its stories of sustainable and ethical production, Cotton Australia project leader Brooke Summers said.
"Unfortunately the change that happened in the cotton industry came out of a major crisis, you had a container of beef that ended up in Korea contaminated by cotton chemicals and we were told basically do something about it or your industry will be shut down," Ms Summers said at the Agribusiness Outlook Australia 2015 forum in Melbourne last week.
In 1994, the US, Japan, Korea, Canada and Taiwan impounded 60,000 tonnes of Australian beef after high levels of the cotton chemical chlorfluazuron (CFZ) were found; and further shipments were returned to Australia in the following years.
"It was a massive shock that kicked us into gear," she said.
"We're now into the second generation of farmers BCI [Better Cotton Initiative] ingrained in the business and in their psyche and everything they do."
Mr Summers said aligning Cotton Australia's farm standards with BCI gave Australian cotton growers full accreditation to sell their cotton as BCI cotton, which assured them access to BCI members include global retail giants such as Ikea, H&M and Nike.
Cotton to Market
She said Cotton Australia's Cotton to Market project, launched 18 months ago, was taking this work with global retailers to the next level.
"The Cotton to Market campaign is a new space for Cotton Australia, because traditionally our marketing has been at spin mills level to sell them on the quality of our product.
"But we need to work with brands and retailers because they are the people who can demand our product and have the power to decide whether cotton is in the supply chains."
She said although Australia sold all its cotton at a premium each year, thanks to its renowned quality, a concerted industry campaign was needed to create confidence to use cotton and have brands and retailers choose it over synthetics; to future-safe Australia's industry and to create value for Australian growers, "…who have invested a whole lot of time and money into their sustainability credentials".
She said in the past 20 years, Australia's cotton industry had achieved a 95pc reduction in pesticide by using genetically modified varieties and integrated pest management; and in the past 10 year, a 42pc increase in water use efficiency.
It was another crisis that pushed retailers to scrutinise their supply chain - in 2013, thousands of Bangladeshi factory workers were killed or injured when the Rana Plaza in collapsed.
"It really focused the world's attention and the textile manufacturing industry on some of the issues that need to be cleaned up in industry," Ms Summers said.
"We believe this will continue but we recognised we didn't have the funds or resources to do it ourselves and we needed to work in partnerships with global brands."
Global partnerships
She said Cotton Australia's funding was limited because it had a voluntary grower levy (unlike wool) and that growing base was smaller than other commodities.
"The key partnerships we've set up include Cotton Leads, in which we've partnered with the US cotton industry to ask manufacturers and brands to commit to cotton and recognise cotton grown in the US and Australia has very high standards.
"There are more than 300 partners in that program."
The US and Australia are the only two countries that can trace cotton back to the paddock it's grown. Ms Summers said these developed nations were also working with developing countries to stamp out child labour in cotton production.
Ms Summers said such international partnerships gave Cotton Australia access to global retailers it otherwise wouldn't have and ensured Australia was not excluded from ethical procurement programs.
"We also want to work with Australian brands and retailers to tell our story, so we have the Australian Cotton Mark, and the first big win for us was with Target Australia that now has a range of about 1 million units of 100pc Australian cotton products," she said.
She said wool and cotton being natural fibres, they did combined campaigns, but they targeted different markets, with cotton being a "more everyman fibre", while wool targeted the higher end.
