GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – World Cotton Day provides an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the sector’s importance to the livelihoods of millions of farmers, processors and traders around the world, particularly in Africa. Those are the words of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff. In marking the first anniversary of World Cotton Day on Wednesday, he said the commemorations bring together the cotton, trade and development communities to continue their joint efforts towards the sustainable development of the sector. The C4 group of countries (Benin, Furkina Faso, Chad and Mali) initiated the cotton sectoral initiative at the WTO in 2004 with the aim of improving the global trade rules as they relate to cotton, and to shed light on the many linkages among trade, cotton and development. They also initiated the launch of World Cotton Day in 2019. Grown in over 75 countries across five continents, cotton is more than just a fiber used to make apparel as it’s also a source of edible oil, animal feed and fuel. In several least developed countries in particular, cotton is central to job creation and economic stability, and a central element of local culture which is why the crop has maintained such a high sgnificance with member countries of the WTO.
(SOURCE: All Ag News)