PAA
West African cotton farmers are being "locked into poverty" as a result of actions by the United States and the European Union, fairtrade campaigners say.
The Fairtrade Foundation said cotton should be the "white gold" helping millions of farmers in West Africa escape from poverty to earn a decent living.
But the group claimed that a "wall of free cash" given to farmers in the US and EU countries was having a "devastating" effect on the industry in other parts of the world.
Advertisement: Story continues below The EU pays out $US2.5 per pound (0.45kg) of cotton to support its 100,000 cotton growers, which the foundation said was more than the market price.
The US and EU together have "lavished" $US32 billion over the past nine years on their cotton farmers, holding down prices in West Africa, and so "perpetuating" reliance on aid, it was claimed.
The foundation detailed its complaints in a new report, The Great Cotton Stitch Up, ahead of an expected decision by the EU this week on the Common Agriculture Policy through which cotton subsidies are dispersed.
Campaigners urged the EU to scrap the "trade-distorting" cotton subsidies.
Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: "This report reveals one of the greatest trade injustices of our time.
"Ten million farmers are locked into poverty while trade-distorting subsidies are paid out by the EU and the US. It is incredible that EU cotton subsidies are worth more per pound than what cotton trades for on global markets. This is why we are calling on the EU to eliminate its cotton trade-distorting subsidies and to include this urgently needed measure in the new Common Agricultural Policy reform process launching this week.
"In Mali, we're working with one co-operative of 8000 members who have been able to earn 50 per cent more by producing and selling organic Fairtrade cotton. As a result, 95 per cent of their children are enrolled in school compared with a national average of 43 per cent. This is what a small uplift in farmers' income can achieve."
Douda Samake, a farmer and secretary of a cotton-growing co-operative in southern Mali, said: "Cotton is our only income. These (US subsidies) are the reason we're not producing as much cotton. Mali cotton farmers are hardly able to cover their living costs."