University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

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Governments, particularly in Europe, are also stimulating support for organic
production. The use of incentives and taxes to reduce the use of chemicals in farming
in Germany and Sweden are recent examples of positive interventions (OTA 2007).
A Delphi study conducted by the University of Cambridge (Allwood 2006) found
that participants expected environmental practices to be increasingly forced through
by legislation. This is likely to bring prices down as subsidies encourage
participation and increase the entry of new competitors.
Factors Preventing The Growth Of The Organic Cotton
Industry
Although there are a number of forces encouraging the move to organic production,
other forces counteract these. Prices are still too high to encourage mass migration to
organic cotton products. On average in 2007, a fully certified organic cotton t-shirt
was priced at $44 3 nearly three times more than a conventional cotton T-shirt. There
is also, still, a lack of awareness of the consequences of the different production
methods. An understanding of these, although increasing, is still some way off
reaching saturation. Our data gathering in India in 2007 found that the majority of
farmers and ginners, and even the specialists at an agricultural university, were not
aware of the environmental benefits of organic cotton.
Another important factor is the willingness of retailers and manufacturers to give
long-term commitments to organic methods, something which directly affects the
adoption of organic cotton production methods by farmers. There is a 3 year
conversion phase that farmers have to go through before they can produce certifiable
organic cotton, during which time yields decline. Hence a long-term commitment is
needed to encourage the conversion process. This might be compensated by a
supportive economic infrastructure provided by governments or aid agencies, but this
infrastructure is not yet in place. In addition to compensating for the initial loss of
yield, it needs to counter the supportive framework currently provided by a ‘readymade
network of researchers, pesticide experts, advisers and companies’ (Fromartz
2007) who promote non organic methods. This means that the whole conversion
process looks too risky to many.
The current consumer demands for ‘fast fashion’, i.e. short-lasting garments at throw
away prices with little emphasis on quality, also appears to be driving sales away
from higher priced, higher quality products such as those made from organic cotton.
Organic garments have longer production lead times, making them less able to
compete with non-organic clothes, which can be supplied much more quickly,
thereby satisfying the demand for constantly new and different items. Although there
is some evidence that the demand for fast, value, clothing is decreasing, this has not
yet reached mainstream markets (Verdict 2007).
Since one of the main factors encouraging the demand for organic cotton products is
a concern for sustainable and/or ethical practices, it has to compete for discretionary
3 In this paper as an aid to comparability, we are using US dollars as the unit of currency, even though our data
relate to the UK and India