Hamburg, 15 April 2024. In the run-up to Earth Day, which will be celebrated in 175 countries on 22 April this year, notable researchers and representatives of African cotton companies will meet in Tanzania from 15 to 18 April 2024 through the Innovations Club, which was established by Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) and the African Cotton Foundation (ACF). They will discuss how the latest scientific discoveries in the areas of climate change and biodiversity can be combined with traditional knowledge and applied to soil cultivation. The aim is to ensure that the African small-scale cotton farming sector has a future despite facing significant challenges due to climate change.
Climate change is presenting African countries with an increasingly wide array of fundamental challenges, including water scarcity and reductions in biodiversity and soil fertility. In response, both the Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF), which administers CmiA, and ACF have long aimed to improve the living conditions of cotton farming families and to protect our Earth. It is becoming urgent for the small-scale cotton farming sector, which plays a defining role in Africa South of the Sahara, to adapt to these circumstances.
In addition to addressing the impact of climate change in the context of sustainable cotton cultivation, participants will plant fruit trees in order to draw attention to a major transnational effort by African cotton companies, which aim to plant over 520,000 crop trees in CmiA cotton-growing regions by 2025.
Highlighting the significance of such initiatives and of the Innovations Club’s meetings, Alexandra Perschau, the head of standards and outreach at the Aid by Trade Foundation, says, “Climate change and its effects threaten the livelihoods of small-scale farmers at a fundamental level through crop failures, hunger, and the loss of biodiversity.
