CABI helps Pakistan's cotton industry reduce losses of around $350 million a year
Summary
Funded by the Better Cotton Initiative’s Growth & Innovation Fund, and working with a range of partners, including the Government of Sindh Agricultural Research Department, CABI has trained more than 22,000 farmers and 35,000 farm workers on ways of practising Better Cotton production in Pakistan. In addition, more than 18,000 women workers have been trained on proper cotton picking, health and safety, female empowerment, and the prevention of child labour. It is hoped to implement these strategies on a country-wide basis to the more than 500,000 cotton farmers.
The story
CABI is helping Pakistan’s cotton industry to reduce annual losses of around $350m by training thousands of farmers and workers as part of the Better Cotton Initiative. The losses are caused by poor production, transport and storage practices.
Funded by the Better Cotton Initiative’s Growth & Innovation fund, and working with a range of partners, including the Government of Sindh Agricultural Research Department, CABI has trained more than 22,000 farmers and 35,000 farm workers on ways of practising Better Cotton production.
Better Cotton practices have been applied to 90,000 hectares of cotton crop, from where nearly 96,000 metric tonnes of Better Cotton lint is produced.
In addition to this, more than 18,000 women workers have been trained on proper cotton picking, health and safety, female empowerment, and the prevention of child labour. CABI has enhanced the capacity of 840 medium-sized farmers to implement the Better Cotton Standard System with a focus on protecting crops from harmful pests and diseases and to conserve the natural habitats on the farms.
“We have been trying to instil on farmers good agricultural practices that will help them conserve limited resources and produce Better Cotton as a sustainable mainstream commodity. It is hoped that through ongoing engagement with the Better Cotton Initiative we will encourage proper cotton picking to avoid contamination, better storage and transportation to markets and ginning mills where it is processed and thereby enable farmers to adopt a decent work strategy.” Rauf Ahmad Khan Laghari, Project Manager, CABI
 Moving forward, it is hoped that the Better Cotton Initiative strategies will be implemented on a countrywide basis and reach out to more than 500,000 farmers who rely on cotton crop for their livelihoods.
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Related News & Blogs
CABI helps Pakistan’s cotton industry to reduce losses of around $350m a year
CABI is helping Pakistan’s cotton industry to reduce losses of around $350m a year through poor production, transport and storage practices by training thousands of farmers and workers as part of the Better Cotton Initiative.
3rd May 2018
Related projects
Producing better cotton in Pakistan
Cotton is Pakistan’s largest industrial sector. In total though, the industry is losing around 10-15% through poor traditional practices. Using the Better Cotton Standard System, we are encouraging farmers to implement Better Cotton production principles and criteria, Good Agricultural Practices by providing participatory training to thousands of small, medium and large-sized farmers and their farm workers.
Start: 01/04/2014 End: 31/03/2025