A new report on cotton traceability highlights the engagement with farmers

As part of the concluding section of the five-year #WhoMadeMyCotton study entitled "Step 4", published on World Cotton Day, experts Annie Wells and Anne Udart presented findings following field visits to Brazil, India, and Turkey. The report emphasizes that transactional records do not reflect the actual conditions of fiber production, which is why brands need to directly contact farmers and local communities.

Anne Udart explains that agronomists, field and seasonal workers, input suppliers, researchers, local traders, and ginning mills constitute a single ecosystem. The ginneries themselves hold key data on the source of the raw material, as they settle accounts directly with the farmers. However, due to the lack of standardized formats outside certified systems and the cessation of information transfer after batch mixing, subsequent data retrieval across the supply chain turns into a labor-intensive investigation.

According to Udart, moving from finished products back to the source creates logistical difficulties. Systematic recording of origin at each transaction stage would save companies from having to reconstruct the chain retroactively and would allow them to respond in a timely manner to environmental or labor issues. Nevertheless, detailed reporting captures only the movement of raw materials, but not the season's costs for the producers themselves.

As Annie Wells notes, to understand real conditions, brands need to personally know the people and places of production. The "relational traceability" proposed by the authors combines digital registries with long-term partnerships. Such an exchange of field information makes it possible to learn in advance about factors affecting prices and yield, which increases the resilience of the entire chain.

The researchers also warn against creating artificial stories about individual farmers for marketing purposes, reminding us of the collective nature of cotton farming. Regular field trips help take the local context into account and solve systemic problems at the source level, despite the fact that travel expenses are often the first to be cut.