With its organic cotton projects, Cotonea helps to secure food in its cultivation countries and contributes to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to end hunger.
In order to finally and fundamentally move the world in the direction of sustainable development, in 2014 the United Nations (UN) agreed on 17 global Sustainable Development Goals. The member countries should implement these by 2030. In order to achieve this, everybody has to contribute.
The non-selective herbicide glyphosate that has been marketed under the name Round up for nearly 30 years, kills every plant, unless its seeds have been genetically modified so that they are resistant to just this specific herbicide. The producer of both products is the US-company Monsanto, which was bought by Bayer for 63 billion dollars in 2018. Glyphosate has also been patented as an antibiotic since 2010, which, like every antibiotic, kills bacteria. However, fertile soil needs bacteria and humans are also completely dependent on bacteria.
Who invented it, the fairy tale of thirsty cotton; who claimed it was true, repeated and spread it, thus making everyone believe it? Maybe the synthetic fibre industry? The truth is: cotton uses less water than all other common field crops! And in the end, farmers do have to cultivate some kind of crop.
In 2016, Cotonea occupied the third place in NGO Textile Exchange’s ranking list of the 10 larg-est processors of ecologically-fair cotton worldwide. For more than 10 years Cotonea has been consistently sourcing organically-fair cotton from its own cultivation and, for their long-standing commitment in Uganda and Kyrgyzstan, have now been rewarded with third place on the Organic Fair Trade ranking list (OFT). Only Boll & Branch from New Jersey and the Swiss Coop have achieved a higher ranking position than Elmer & Zweifel with Cotonea.
GOTS-certified organic cotton contains gene-manipulated organisms (GMO). The guidelines prohibit this. However, GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) does not pursue these accusations, but rather contests the testing process.