Better Cotton Initiative to receive grant from Uzbekistan government

The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) has said that Uzbekistan, long blacklisted as a global cotton supplier over child labor issues, will reimburse the costs of certifying farms and producers that adopt BCI standards.

The new plan will be managed by the newly created Light Industries Agency of Uzbekistan and is part of the roadmap drawn up last year by the Ministry of Agriculture of Uzbekistan and the association of textile and clothing industries of Uzbekistan (Uztekstilprom).

“Certification costs can be a barrier to market entry, not only for cotton producer collectives in Uzbekistan, but also for farmers around the world,” said Katerina Gorbunova, head of the Uzbek program at BCI. “The creation of this grant scheme will be crucial to accelerate the industry's efforts towards sustainable development,” he added.

BCI is an international organization that promotes best practices in cotton growing and its certification label is a trusted source for buyers. It began operations in Uzbekistan in 2023, after a trial phase that began in 2017 with 12 major local cotton farms.

Cotton Campaign, a global NGO and the long-standing leading critic of the Uzbek cotton industry, removed Uzbekistan from its blacklist on March 10, 2022. A few days earlier, the International Labor Organization had recognized that forced and child labor in the country was a thing of the past.

However, the Cotton Campaign raised the alarm last March. According to the NGO, the recent growth in Uzbekistan's cotton exports has led the country's government to set ambitious production targets. These goals are said to have encouraged local officials to resort to coercion and extortion to compensate for the shortage of volunteer pickers.

According to Textile Exchange, Uzbekistan produced 109,470 tons of cotton in 2024, 3% of which was BCI certified. The United States Department of Commerce has ranked Uzbekistan as the eighth largest cotton producer in the world.

In 2024, global cotton production fell by 19% and the material accounted for 20% of global fiber production, making it the second most produced fiber, although well behind polyester's 59%.