Better Cotton gave its blessing to a strategic roadmap drawn up with agricultural and textile stakeholders in Uzbekistan to accelerate the country’s sustainable cotton production.
The global cotton sustainability initiative hosted an event in the country’s capital, Tashkent, where representatives from government, civil society and fashion supply chains gathered to formalize the agreement.
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The roadmap contains three core objectives: align a strategic partnership model and define management, finance and implementation responsibilities; ensure effective collaboration with program partners and stakeholders to promote sustainable cotton farming; and developing and implementing a joint set of measures designed to remove barriers to scale.
“This roadmap shows that there is much more to be gained from Better Cotton in Uzbekistan,” said Katerina Gorbunova, country manager of the Better Cotton Uzbekistan Program. “Together with our partners, we can strengthen the foundations of the Uzbekistan program and develop new solutions to ensure long-term success.”
The agreement with the Uzbek Ministry of Agriculture and the Textile and Clothing Industry Association (Uztekstilprom) aims to improve the Better Cotton Uzbekistan program by mobilizing resources to streamline farmer registration, strengthen field-level support and to expand and increase investment opportunities through grants and government subsidies.
A key initiative of the agreement will be training for the Ministry of Agriculture and Uztekstilprom, allowing them to provide leadership to cotton farming communities and meet the requirements of Better Cotton program partners. The roadmap also outlines strategies to reduce audit fatigue, improve the flow of assessment data and engage the supply chain to demonstrate the benefits of processing Better Cotton fibers.
Uzbekistan is one of the largest cotton-producing countries in the world and will grow approximately 740,000 tons of fiber in the period 2022-2023, according to Statista. The Central Asian country is known for its distinctive ‘cotton clusters’: vertically integrated enterprises that grow, harvest and process cotton.
Better Cotton, which operates in 22 countries and accounts for 22 percent of global cotton, launched in Uzbekistan in 2022 following assurances from the International Labor Organization (ILO) that the country had successfully eliminated systemic child and forced labor in cotton production. Partners in the program work with farming communities at field level to ensure their production meets Better Cotton standards, which cover six areas: management, natural resources, crop protection, fiber quality, decent work and sustainable livelihoods.
The organization announced in September that it would move to third-party validation after coming under fire for shortcomings in its due diligence process and other issues. Better Cotton said it would engage third parties to conduct assessments and make certification decisions in an effort to improve the credibility of its process.
Better Cotton works with more than 300 brands and retailers, including Adidas, Gap Inc., H&M and Zara parent company Inditex.
