In 2017 Better Cotton crossed 14% of global cotton production, retailers and brands doubled their uptake for the second straight year, and BCI finished the first full rewrite of its standard. Chief executive Alan McClay called the 30% goal "more realistic than ever."
Global Harvest Report 2016-17
Better Cotton grew in 21 countries across five continents. Of 1,582,459 participating farmers, 1,299,243 earned a licence, farming 3,309,000 hectares and producing 3,262,000 tonnes of lint. Partners trained another 300,000 farmers in two additional countries.
The licensed headcount actually fell. BCI's assurance programme denied or cancelled licences for breaches of minimum requirements on pesticide use and for inaccurate farm data, hitting India and Mali hardest. Volume still rose, because large, high-yielding producers in countries such as the United States joined.
The producing countries that season: Australia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, India, Israel, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Mozambique, Pakistan, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Türkiye, Uganda, the United States, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Message from the CEO
McClay singled out the revised Principles and Criteria, approved by the BCI Council in November 2017 after more than two years of consultation, as the year's proudest milestone. A 12-month transition followed. He credited 59 strategic and implementing partners, nearly 1,200 members and some 4,000 field facilitators, and signalled a post-2020 strategy aligned with the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Growing demand
Membership climbed 21% to 1,197, with 17 new retailer and brand members and 193 new suppliers and manufacturers. Retailers and brands claimed 736,000 tonnes of Better Cotton, up 60%, while spinners sourced 1.2 million tonnes. Forty-two of 85 retailer and brand members had published time-bound commitments to source 100% of their cotton more sustainably. Better Cotton Platform accounts rose 48% to 3,640.
adidas, a member since 2010, described how BCI helped it close in on 100% sustainable cotton by expanding supply in the right sourcing regions.
Growth and Innovation Fund
BCI and the renamed Better Cotton Growth and Innovation Fund invested €7.5 million directly in 2017, giving 613,755 farmers in China, India, Mozambique, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Türkiye and Senegal access to training. Most funded partners co-invested on top.
Financial footprint
The volume-based fee paid by retailer and brand members remained the core mechanism, routed mainly into the fund and matched by institutional donors. Through equivalent standards, myBMP in Australia, ABR in Brazil, and Cotton made in Africa with the Smallholder Cotton Standard, BCI's system reached 1.6 million farmers. In Israel, every cotton farmer was a BCI Farmer.