Good Earth Cotton onboards 1,977 Indian farms
20/06/2022
As of the current cropping season, a total of 1,977 India-based smallholder cotton farms have begun converting their cotton crops to verifiable Good Earth Cotton, covering an area of 3,689 hectares, the company announced.
Participating farmers have subsequently started the process of soil sampling, data collection and satellite-enabled tagging, to establish an initial base analysis against which the programme will be reviewed and adapted. This is intended to support ongoing, measurable improvement when it comes to realising the goal of climate positive cotton, with special consideration given to India’s climate.
Good Earth Cotton stated that it expected it would take three cropping seasons for its methods to be fully implemented by growers, adding that the idea was novel to India in terms of the specificity, scale and scientific nature of the data collection undertaken. Underpinned by FibreTrace’s digitally enabled, physical traceability technology from the start, the provenance of all fibre grown can be verified in real time, it added.
“We have spent over 10 years on our properties in Australia investing in agronomy, carbon science and ongoing research and development to deliver our programme. Being able to share our knowledge, skills and practices across the globe is phenomenal,” said Good Earth Cotton co-founder, Danielle Statham.
Delight Group is also now expected to roll out FibreTrace technology across its certified organic and two years in-conversion Indian cotton, along with that cultivated under the country’s national programme for organic production (NPOP).
“When we learned about the progress being made by the Stathams in Australia and realised a strong sense of shared values, we were eager to lead the research and development necessary in India to adapt practice change and not only result in climate-positive outcomes, but also provide Indian farmers with an opportunity to enhance their yield and livelihoods,” commented Delight Group chief executive, Abhishek Doshi.
Learn more about cotton traceability tools including FibreTrace in WSA’s features section here.
Image credit: David Hutton.
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