What do SV Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund, FC St. Pauli, Arminia Bielefeld, Eintracht Frankfurt, Hamburger SV, VfB Stuttgart, VfL Wolfsburg and 1. FC Union Berlin have in common? Not only do they meet as rivals on the soccer field, they also campaign for fan articles made from Fairtrade-certified organic cotton.
As part of the “From the field to the fan shop” initiative, the nine football clubs in the first and second Bundesliga want to offer fan articles with the Fairtrade cotton seal starting this summer.
In the next three years, the project will therefore support 450 Fairtrade-certified smallholders in India in converting to organic farming. The cotton grown then flows into the production of merchandise items for the clubs. In addition, around 1,000 children and young people from the region are to be supported through sports training.
Why is the switch from conventional to organic cotton difficult?
Even if smallholder farmers, in converting to organic cotton, are returning to practices such as using organic fertilizers that have been used in Indian agriculture for centuries, the conversion is not easy: Yields are falling and those after decades of using chemical fertilizers drained soils need to be revitalized.
“We plant the cotton in rotation with other crops such as mustard or peanuts. So by switching production to organic cotton, we are also switching all other crops, including the vegetables that we eat ourselves,” explains cotton farmer Bharath Bhai Kumbhabhabi, one of the 450 producers participating in the project and who has been doing it since been part of the Fairtrade cooperative for two years.
The cotton comes from the Fairtrade-certified cooperative Rapar & Dhrangadhra Farmers Producer Company (RDFC) in the western Indian state of Gujarat. In the future, the small farms will produce around two tons of organic cotton per hectare.
The “From the field to the fan shop” initiative was launched by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) together with the textile company Brands Fashion. It is supported by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) GmbH with training in sustainable cultivation practices and access to improved seeds on site. The Fairtrade producer network NAPP helps with the further development of the cooperatives and with social issues.
As a so-called “Cotton-in-Conversion” collection, the cotton from the project region should be available in fan shops from summer 2023.