Water projects help cotton farmers and their neighbours
The Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF), the non-profit organisation behind the Cotton Made In Africa standard, has given details of work it has done to improve access to safe water in cotton-growing regions.
On World Water Day, March 22, it said that much of the work it supports on water access has focused on the construction of sanitation and hygiene facilities.
Through these projects, it said its partners had constructed 142 new wells and 478 latrines in cotton-growing areas of Africa by the end of 2023.
It said the supply of water is coming under threat because of climate change, especially in “structurally disadvantaged regions” south of the Sahara, where weather extremes like droughts and torrential rainfall are having what AbTF has called “a devastating effect”.
It presented water-filtering projects in Uganda as a good example. AbTF is with cotton company MMP Agro and other partners to put bio-sand filters in place for cotton farmers.
These filters can be built in a simple and cost-effective way to purify the water available from existing sources. Around 1,000 Cotton Made In Africa farmers and 10,000 village residents are benefiting from bio-sand filters that are being manufactured from locally sourced materials.
