Chetna also facilitate projects to positively impact the lives of the farmers and their communities in association with other buyers too. We hope to get involved with these projects as we build our trust and relationship with them.
There have been reports of forgery in the process of fabric certification - meaning more 'organic cotton' is exported from then what is grown in the world market. This can happen when brands or factories are not asking for the certification documents, meaning they are used across multiple orders of fabric, and items are passed off as organic when they aren't. It's been good to see more brands adopting the use of organic cotton in their ranges in recent years, but the knock on effect of this has seen the demand start to outweigh the supply, this in turn increases the cost of organic cotton, which can encourage some businesses to find ways around it. It can take farmers years to turn their land into land suitable for organic produce, this means if there's a spike in the demand, the supply can take years to catch up.
We hope that one day fully transparent supply chains and traceable fabrics are the norm - that the fashion industry not only uses organic cotton, but is rigorous and transparent in its sourcing and use.
Kunal is hoping to visit the farms to meet some of the farmers once travel is safer in India. Eventually our buying team will be able to go out and meet them also!
