South African Organic Cotton Field Day

The purpose of the pilot project on organic cotton farming in South Africa is to facilitate the development of commercial scale organic cotton farming in South Africa by 2010. A number of organic cotton growing trial sites have been established on both commercial and small-scale farms to assess the viability of commercially producing organic cotton in South Africa, create a learning experience for all partners involved in the project on how to grow organic cotton in a viable and sustainable way and establish a value chain for the production, marketing and retailing or organic cotton in South Africa.
Project partners include:

• ComMark as a funding partner to the project.
• Organic Exchange who, as a non-profit organisation committed to expanding organic agriculture, with a specific focus on increasing the production and use of organically grown fibres such as cotton, brings business and technical expertise to the project.
• Woolworths South Africa, who brings market, retail and value chain expertise to the project and has agreed to buy 100% of the organic cotton harvested at the end of May 2008 from these pilot fields to turn into a range of organic T-shirts which will be launched in their shops in November 2008, together with their business (and value chain) partners – Monviso, Frame Spinning and Frame Knitting.
• Both commercial (conventional) cotton farmers and a number of small-scale farmers (mainly organic food growers) in areas conducive to organic cotton production as a part of their rotation crop strategy who conduct the demonstrations/pilots for organic cotton on allocated lots of land.
• Cotton South Africa, who provides testing, quality management and farmer training expertise; and
• Agricultural Research Council (ARC), who carries out research around the results from the trials conducted on the research plots.

ComMark and its project partners visited three commercial farms near Musina in Limpopo province in April 2008 to review the organic trial sites and participate in a Field Day where the interim results from the trials and the knowledge acquired during the process so far were shared between the project partners.
The desired outcomes of the South African Organic Cotton Pilot project is to:

• Build organic farming knowledge and skills;
• Create new markets for farmer and new products for consumers;
• Build models of committed, transparent, fair and sustainable value chains, understanding the economic, social and environmental benefits and risks at all levels of the value chain; and
• Improve the environment and enhance the lives and livelihoods of organic farmers, their families and communities.

Some key findings from the visits to the organic cotton trial sites were:

• Organic cotton production is viable in South Africa;
• Soil building and nutrient management are critical issues in organic cotton farming;
• Early interventions with weed management and pest management are needed to prevent production losses; and
• Support is needed to help deepen organic farming knowledge and skills among large-scale commercial and small-scale emerging producers.

Gaps identified during the project thus far:

• Knowledge, learning and expertise flowing from the project should be incorporated to plug a substantial knowledge gap in terms of organic cotton growing processes and value chain creation;
• Sustainable value chain alliances must be built on a foundation of trust and transparency – commercial viability relies on avoiding working in pockets and/or isolation;
• Government involvement as a stakeholder should be addressed in year 2 of this three-year project.
• Greater community engagement should be addressed in year 2.
• Very importantly, developing infrastructure for technical support and training must be addressed; and
• Farmers have to become part of production in a much more proactive way – and a more integral part of value chain – which will also link into viable rural development.