China has introduced its own sustainable cotton standard, covering issues including workers’ rights, environmental impact and the use of fertilizers, which comes into force from the beginning of next month.
The China Cotton Association (CCA) unveiled the new standard through the China Cotton Sustainable Development Programme launched last year as part of China’s backlash against Western criticism over the alleged use of forced labour in the Xinjiang region.
However, Cotton Expert Simon Ferrigno said he believed the standard – which the CCA says aims to help cotton producers adopt sustainable methods and increase farmers’ income – was merely a propaganda tool. “Your Chinese cotton may use less fertiliser from now on, but it will not be free of slave labour. China is seeking to use its market heft to essentially change the priorities of sustainable cotton away from social concerns,” he commented.
The new standard focuses on the management and use of agricultural chemicals in cotton planting, ecological and environmental protection, cotton quality and other core issues related to sustainable agriculture, according to a reports.
It says that workers must be paid at least the local minimum wage and that medical check-ups should be provided at least once a year free of charge. Meanwhile, cotton producers are required to increase their use of clean energy and “improve efficiency with chemical fertilizer”.
Ferrigno added: “The standards focus on the core issues of sustainable agricultural development, such as the management and use of agricultural chemicals, ecological and environmental protection, cotton quality and occupational health and safety during cotton planting.”
“This is all well and good – but the entire glossy PR from China shows happy farmers, big fields, no labour. They are using drones to spray pesticides. The starting point is fundamentally dishonest, as the basis for this standard is that standards like BCI withdrew from Xinjiang under pressure. That is, because of revelations about forced labour in particular. It is cosmetic.
“None of this captures who the labour forces are entering this system, doing the work. Are they coerced, forced, enslaved? We know they are. This has as much basis in fact as Putin’s claim Ukraine needs de-nazification.”
The China Cotton Sustainable Development Programme launched last year to counter the Better Cotton Initiative which had pulled out of Xinjiang, which supplies a fifth of the world’s cotton, because of concerns about forced labour involving incarcerated Uyghur Muslims.
The Chinese Communist Party’s flagship, reported that the aim was “to build a homegrown independent sustainable standard and certification system to counter the West’s dominance that has posed serious threat on China’s cotton industry”.
“The move marks a milestone in overhauling the global cotton rule-making system, which is currently monopolised by the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), a West-led industry body that has apparently been manipulated by some anti-China forces in their slandering against China and its policies in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” it said.
