Uzbekistan is the latest country to be on the receiving end of the technology and know how of Better Cotton, the world’s largest cotton sustainability initiative, which set up shop there a few months ago.
Major stakeholders in the country recently signed a Roadmap of Sustainability with Better Cotton, to drive improvements in its cotton sector such as adopting more sustainable practices that are better for the environment, communities and the economy.
The roadmap will build on the existing Better Cotton Program, launched in 2022, by laying out a detailed action plan whose progress will be measured according to four objectives. They include building effective management systems and raising awareness about sustainability, prioritizing good labor practices with criteria that ensures good work, health and safety conditions, balanced employer-worker relations and a productive social dialogue.
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It will also aim to build stakeholders’ awareness of the best in cotton production practices and assessing those approaches at field level, in addition to building a three-year plan to define ways the Better Cotton Initiative can be managed, funded and delivered at scale.
Rachel Beckett, senior program manager, Better Cotton, noted the opportunity the initiative has in Uzbekistan which was blacklisted by brands and retailers for more than 10 years over labor violations. “Better Cotton sees its work in Uzbekistan as an opportunity to create value and drive improvements for the environment, producers and workers in the country’s cotton sector, and bring us closer to our vision of a world where all cotton is more sustainable,” she said.
The freeze-out led to government-led labor reforms in what is the world’s sixth-largest cotton producer. A year ago, the International Labor Organization declared Uzbek cotton “free” of forced and child labor while at the same time, the global coalition known as the Cotton Campaign called off the boycott. Known as the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic between 1924 and 1991, the country has since shown it can harvest cotton “almost entirely” without using forced labor.
In September, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) struck Uzbek cotton off its annual list of countries whose goods are produced by child or forced labor, recognizing its “significant advancement.”
In 2021, Uzbekistan’s cotton fields were monitored by state-of-the-art Cotton Cultivation Remote Assessment software developed by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the German data fusion agency Marple. It uses AI to differentiate cotton fields from other crops using satellite images and sensor data, as well as whether the cotton fields were organic.
Tanzila Narbayeva, senate chairperson and chairperson of the National Commission for Combatting Human Trafficking and Forced Labor, believes Better Cotton’s latest initiative in Uzbekistan is yet another step forward for the sector, particularly on the human rights front. “This roadmap serves to strengthen social protection, improve labor relations based in international standards and create decent and safe working conditions for workers,” she said.
