The Aid by Trade Foundation has informed its partners that the verification of CmiA cotton from Benin will be suspended with immediate effect. The Foundation decided to take this step after the Benin government changed the framework conditions for the cotton sector such that the CmiA sustainability criteria could no longer be assured.
Christoph Kaut, responsible for development policy: “We regret that we have to suspend CmiA cotton from Benin, but it is important that we maintain our sustainability criteria. We are confident that the reforms set out for Benin’s cotton sector will allow us to take up CmiA verification again over the course of the coming two or three harvests.”
The Aid by Trade Foundation will not withdraw from the country though, and continue to support participating cotton farmers and their families in improving their living conditions. The training of currently over 22,000 CmiA farmers in Benin will continue. The community project begun in 2010 to improve the educational infrastructure in six communities in the country and construct additional school buildings will also be maintained.
Benin was one of the first countries in which the Cotton made in Africa Initiative began its activities. Last year Benin smallholder farmers produced 17,740 tons of ginned CmiA cotton.