Read about the plight of the millions of West African cotton farmers in 'The Great Cotton Stitch-Up'

Thank you to all of you who got involved in The Great Cotton Stitch-Up campaign. The Great Cotton Stitch-Up report launched in November 2010 revealed the billions of dollars ‘wall’ of subsidies West African cotton farmers face when exporting to the global cotton market. Thousands of you have decorated bunting, written to Agriculture Minister Caroline Spelman and lobbied your MEPs to raise awareness of the issue of cotton subsidies and demand that action be taken to end them as part of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

UK Government: Agreed in principle - UK citizens: Record breakers for trade justice

Your efforts led the UK government to put a commitment to eliminating trade distorting cotton subsidies into its Trade and Investment White Paper in February 2011. In May 2011 the Fairtrade movement won a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest line of handmade bunting at 3427.94m. Over 140,000 magnificently adorned flags were made by communities around the UK - enough to break the record ten times over!  The record breaking bunting travelled to Brussels, and the European Parliamentary assemblies and European civil servants debated European cotton subsidies in the summer of 2011 because you put it on their agenda.

EU: Crisis means policy remains unchanged

Despite our best efforts, and the agreement of the UK Government, we have not made the headway we had hoped for. There has been a definite change in tone from the European Commission and MEPs and they acknowledge that EU reform of cotton subsidies may not have gone far enough. But EU member states have so far failed to take the necessary action to redress the balance between desperately poor West African cotton farmers and European cotton farmers.  CAP negotiations will continue this year but with the main cotton producing countries – Spain and Greece – plunging deeper into economic crisis, the economic case for eliminating trade distorting subsidies is getting weaker and the political space to influence this issue in Europe is getting smaller.

WTO: Failed to agree (again)

The announcement in May 2011 that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) would put together a package of measures for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to agree at the WTO ministerial conference in December offered hope that what could not be achieved through CAP reform could be pushed through the WTO.  A deal on cotton was suggested but immediately rejected by the US government who refused to negotiate cotton subsidies without China and India sitting at the table too.  You contacted Trade Minister Ed Davey and asked him to push for a deal on cotton in the WTO, and may even have petitioned the US Ambassador to the UK to do the same but, when it came to crunch time, nothing on cotton was delivered for the poorest countries in the world in 2011.  WTO members failed to agree for the 10th year running on how to play fair.

Next steps?

While the WTO negotiations are stalled and the CAP negotiations are taking place within a new context it seems that for now the West African cotton farmers will remain stitched-up by unfair subsidies.
In the meantime, Fairtrade remains a lifetime for many cotton farmers, in India and Africa, so this summer we’ll turn our attention to school uniforms, and get more pupils than ever kitted out in Fairtrade cotton uniforms ready for the new school year in September 2012. Watch this space for how you can get involved.