Mozambique joins Cotton made in Africa

Mozambique follows Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Malawi and Zambia to become the sixth project country for Cotton made in Africa. Locally the initiative will collaborate with the cotton company Mozambique Plexus with around 75,000 smallholder farmers expected to profit from the partnership.

The Aid by Trade Foundation estimates around 13,325 tons of ginned cotton will be sourced from Mozambique in harvest season 2011/12. “With the addition of smallholder farmers and their families in Mozambique, our work now reaches a total of over 2.6 million people and will produce an estimated 160,000 tons of ginned cotton this year,” explained Christoph Kaut, Managing Director of the foundation with responsibility for the development policy area. “This means that around 15% of all cotton produced in sub-Saharan Africa is already being sustainably cultivated in accordance with the CmiA standards."

Mozambique, like the other project countries, numbers among the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Around 80% of the population work in agriculture. Cotton, along with cashew nuts, sugar, shrimp and crayfish, numbers among the most important agricultural products and although Mozambique is by now one of the fastest growing national economies in Africa, the country is still one of the poorest and least developed nations in the world.

The CmiA's aim is to help people help themselves through trade, breaking the vicious circle of poverty and improving the living conditions of now more than 420,000 African smallholder farmers in the six African countries. As well as creating an alliance of international textile firms who purchase and process sustainably produced cotton, the farmers also profit from the initiative's training and social projects. Last year around 15 million textiles made of Cotton made in Africa cotton entered the market. For 2012 the initiative anticipates around 20 million units.