Chetna Organic Agriculture Producer Company Ltd (COAPCL),

FC

by Fairtrade Canada

Chetna Organic Agriculture Producer Company Ltd (COAPCL) is a part of Project Chetna, a development initiative aimed at improving the lives of smallholder and marginalized cotton farmers in different rain-fed cotton growing regions in India.

The Chetna Organic and Fair Trade Cotton Intervention Program (OCIP) was launched in 2004 as an ethical supply chain initiative based on sustainable agriculture principles such as organic and Fairtrade and non-pesticide management. OCIP was established with the aim of improving the livelihood of cotton farmers in the Indian states of Maharashtra, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh.

About COAPCL

In order to achieve its goals, Chetna Organic has produced two national level farmer owned and managed institutions: Chetna Organic Famers Association (COFA) and Chetna Organic Agriculture Producer Company Ltd (COAPCL). COFA is a not-for-profit farmer support organization engaged, among other things, in technical training, social improvement, capacity building, and policy and advocacy work. COAPCL, on the other hand, is a commodity trading company, established in 2009, that works on developing sustainable national and international market linkages for smallholder farmers’ agricultural products.

In 2014, Chetna Organic is supporting 15,279 (234 in 2004) cotton farming families organized into 979 farmer self-help groups, which, in turn, are arranged into 13 co-operatives. Almost all of them (94%) are smallholder farmers who own below 2 hectares of land. These farmers live under abject conditions in more than 400 Indian villages, where the dependency on rein-fed agriculture makes them highly vulnerable to the unpredictability of nature and climate. Suicides are a major problem among farming communities in India, especially in Andhra Pradesh and the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

Chetna’s farmers produce around 6,300 tonnes of organic and Fairtrade seed cotton with no use of child labour, synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and GMOs. The certified cotton, which represents approximately 34% of the total cotton production, is grown on 48,130 acres of land and entirely sold locally. Chetna also produces organic certified non-cotton crops such as pulses (red gram, black gram, Bengal gram and green gram), soya bean, rice, vegetables, non-timber forest produce (such as honey, spices etc).

Chetna Organic Agriculture Producer Company Ltd (COAPCL) was Fairtrade certified in 2005. Out of the 15,279 farming families supported by Chetna Organic, 9,647 farms are Fairtrade certified and produce approximately 6,300 tonnes of seed cotton. Fairtrade sales are continuously growing. In particular, the value of organic seed cotton sales grew from INR 3.5 Crores in 2010 to INR 9.45 Crores in 2011.

For these sales, Chetna Organic receives the Fairtrade Minimum Price of INR 34.45/Kg (or the market price if higher) plus the Fairtrade Premium of INR 3.00/Kg to invest in productivity and quality improvements, business support, and various community interventions in the three regions. Since Chetna Organic is a farmer owned organization, farmers have a direct role in decision making during production and marketing processes, as well as during the distribution and allocation of the Premium. 

The Impact of Fairtrade

The majority of Chetna’s farmers store the cotton they produce in their homes, where it represents a health and safety hazard for the household, as it attracts various insects and fungi and poses a severe fire risk. Additionally, because of economic distress and uncertainty, small farmers are often unable to wait and sell their cotton when prices and profits are higher. In order to overcome these difficulties, Chetna Organic has converted part of the Fairtrade Premium into revolving funds at the co-op level. These funds are mainly used to make immediate part payments to the farmers, procure their cotton, and prevent it to be sold when it is less profitable. The Premium has also partly financed the construction of warehouses and procurement centres at the co-operative level where cotton from the farmers is aggregated and stored in a safe manner until the low season, when cotton prices are higher.

The Premium provides the co-ops with the necessary resources to support farmers in the procurement of non-GM cotton seeds, which are often difficult or even impossible to find during the critical sowing season. In this context, Pragathi MACS, one of the co-ops making up Chetna Organic, has employed a revolving fund mechanism to invest the premium and supply a complete ‘Seed Kit’ to its 3,000 smallholder cotton farmers at the beginning of each season. This kit includes non-GM cotton seeds, as well as different varieties of vegetables for homestead/kitchen gardens, pulses, and oilseeds and nursery plants/seedlings. In order to ensure the sustainability of the project, when the cotton is sold after the harvest, the co-op recovers the cost of the cotton seeds from the members and pools it back into the revolving fund.

Fairtrade cotton farmers at a general meeting
Fairtrade cotton farmers at a general meeting
Fairtrade cotton farmers at a general meeting
Fairtrade cotton farmers at a general meeting
Fairtrade cotton farmers at a general meeting
Fairtrade cotton farmers at a general meeting

Chetna Organic has invested part of the Premium in a series of infrastructure projects intended to create viable income generating opportunities for the different co-ops, and to improve the productivity and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. These projects include, among others, the construction of dhal mills, a bio-fertilizer unit, and a nursery, as well as the purchase of a tractor and attachments. Moreover, the aforementioned Pragathi MACS co-op in Andhra Pradesh has been able to use the Premium to instigate larger innovations that can potentially benefit the cotton farming communities as a whole. In particular, the co-op has purchased land and has setup an eco centre to undertake various farm research and innovations and demonstrate best practices for farmers to adopt.

A share of the Premium, along with other funds, has served as support for the institution of villages in the Adilabad district, Andhra Pradesh, where all farmers make use of organic and Fairtrade practices and produce certified non-GM cotton.

The Faces of Chetna Organic

For me Fairtrade is an attempt of offering better trading conditions thereby securing the rights of marginalized producers and workers. It helps the entire business chain to understand the importance of ethical responsibility in the core business setup in order to preserve principle of equality at all the levels of business.

MRUNAL LAHANKAR, CHETNA ORGANIC CERTIFICATION MANAGER

“Have you met Lingu Bai?” was the question we were asked from the time we entered Adilabad district in Telangana. Lingu Bai, it seems, is a bit of a legend in her village, and with good reason. In 2007, she became a Fairtrade-certified farmer with Chetna Organic. Since then, she has not only done well with her cotton farm, but also become an entrepreneur by starting a poultry business. She took a loan from the Fairtrade Premium committee and has paid off most of it, owing to the low-interest rate and the success of her business.

“I have one son and one daughter,” said Lingu Bai, whose entire family is into farming. “We have always been organic farmers, for generations. We continue to practice it because we see a profit in it.”

When Lingu Bai is not farming, she takes care of her family. She proudly showed off her grandson, a wee baby, Pawan Kalia to us. Lingu Bai stands tall as the head of her family – a proud matriarch.

Over cups of steaming hot tea made from a local root, Lingu Bai told us how they prefer to eat jowar in the village and jowar roti is a staple here. “Do you know how to make rotis,” she asked us. When one of our group members said no, she laughed and answered, “You wouldn’t get married then, if you lived here.”

With her ready wit, commitment to her farm and savvy business sense, it’s not hard to see why Lingu Bai is an inspiration.

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Cotton