Pants to Poverty diary: Why Agrocel works

Ben Ramsden's Pants to Poverty find themselves in an Indian cotton field

By Ben Ramsden

It’s my 9th Night in India and am sitting in my hotel room in Delhi, after coursing along rapids of the bouncing river of traffic that is the road from the Airport to the city centre. Screeching horns and a blur of beautifully controlled anarchy have greeted me to this amazing city… a long way from the serenity of Gujarat, where our friends from Agrocel call home.

Agrocel were established 20 years ago by Hasmukh Patel as a servicer provider to farmers in his homeland of Mandvi, just 50 or so miles from the boarder with Pakistan. Starting with just 2 staff and supporting 50 farmers they offered fair and long term support to farmers in the cultivation of foodstuffs and, over the next ten years, gradually expanded their reach to about 300. It was around this time that our friends Thomas and Abi from Gossypium turned up and, impassioned by the great work being done, helped them develop the same principles for cotton. With Gossypium’s help, they managed to get an order from Oxfam Belgium of 10,000 organic t-shirts and the seeds of the fairtrade movement we see today were sewn!

The Agrocel that I have been privileged to spend the last few days with is now a shining example of the beauty of fairtrade. 175 staff now work to support over 5,000 farmers across Gujarat and, as it stands, they are selling out of their beautiful cotton faster than it’ll come out of the ground! However, with their highly scalable model, they have very exciting plans for yet more growth! I was accompanied on my mega tour of the Agrocel world by Dilip, Kowshik and Arun who filled the days and nights with a continual supply of facts, figures, jokes and dreams. After meeting the team at their HQ and dinner at Saleish’s house (the project coordinator and “the face” of fairtrade cotton!) I headed for an early night at the stunning Jaen temple I was staying at. However, lured into the temple by the beating of drums I soon ended up throwing shapes on the temple’s dance floor (yes!) with sixty year olds going nuts to the beat. “Welcome” they said, “to Gujarat!”

Up at 5am and on the road with my comrades, we chatted incessantly about our favourite subject for about 4 hours - very boring if you’re not into cotton! - to the three farms where I met the farmers, talked pants with them and saw the real, lasting and transformational impact that Agrocel and Fairtrade have had on revolutionising their lives. Throughout the day I saw schools, bio gas plants, reservoirs and more that were developed thanks to the fairtrade and organic premiums.

Where once there was insecurity, doubt and debt, now there is an infrastructure, independence and opportunity. It’s clear from the look in the family members eyes, skin, homes and land, that fairtrade has magnificently worked for them and that thanks to purchases of a minority of consumers, their lives have been changed for as long as we keep buying their crops! After several visits, cups of water and tea (and no, my guts haven’t left me yet!) we headed to the new, pulsating heart of Agrocel – their new factory!

The new ginning factory (that takes out the seeds from the cotton) signifies a major landmark for Agrocel and its Director Hasmukh as this stage in the supply chain is often the main stumbling block for small producers. This new factory will now mean that Agrocel can fulfil its dreams of reaching out to and supporting more and more farmers in India so long as the market (the new consumers!) keeps demanding it! I was fortunate enough to be there for the first day that cotton was put through the factory and had the privilege of participating in the opening ceremony and smashing a coconut over the pipes that sucked in the first of the cotton! Madness!! After the excitement had calmed and the sun gone down it was back to our temple (so much better than a hotel!) and, after a short night’s sleep and another 5 hour car journey I was on my way, through the turbulent skies (more on that later) to the room I am sitting in now.

Agrocel epitomise the beauty of fairtrade to date – collaboration, dedication, excellence, grass roots impact and more. Sustainable, long term benefit has been achieved by this team of inspirational social entrepreneurs and their leader Hasmukh. If you’re wearing fairtrade clothes, there’s a strong chance they started their lives on a plant on the farms Agrocel support and if you bought some of our pants in the past, you’re probably even sitting on their work! Let’s just hope that we, the consumers and brands, are able to live up to our role in this journey by ensuring that the market for fairtrade and organic just gets bigger and bigger!