Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) is an initiative of the Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) that helps African smallholder cotton farmers in Africa to improve their living conditions revealed that over 50 million textiles used CmiA labelled cotton fibre last year, which came from over 320,000 tonnes of cotton produced by the organisations smallholder farmers in Africa.

Some 30 companies and brands use CmiA cotton for their textiles. Bonprix, part of the German Otto Group was the biggest buyer of its cotton in 2016 with multi-channel retailer Tschibo and then the Rewe Group following closely behind via its EWE, Penny and Toom Baumarkt outlets.

Other notable buyers of CmiA’s cotton included Asos, Bestseller and Engelbert Strauss.

In addition to the larger fashion companies, cotton from the initiative was also used for smaller fashion labels such as Hiitu from Germany, UK-based Cooekid, Weaverbirds from Denmark and Abaana from Uganda.

Overall, CmiA cotton was used in a selection of products ranging from children's clothing to high fashion textiles, notes Christian Barthel, Director Supply Chain Management, at the organization, in view of the many heterogeneous buyers of Cotton made in Africa cotton, it is clear that sustainable cotton from Africa can be used for a number of different product groups.

Cotton made in Africa cotton is grown by more than 780,000 smallholder farmers in 10 countries of sub-Saharan Africa and in accordance with the ecological and socio-economic criteria of the CmiA standard.

More than 100 partners in the textile value chain work with Cotton made in Africa across the globe, to implement the principle of helping people to help themselves through trade.