The Chetna Organic and Fair Trade Cotton Intervention Program (OCIP) was started in 2004 as an attempt to promote ecologically friendly farming practices with the purpose of improving livelihood options of small and marginal farmers by making agriculture a sustainable and profitable occupation and creating access to ethical and fair-trade markets.

The idea was not to indulge in charity, but to involve farmers in an international collaboration to build an ethical supply chain which believes in the principles of ecological and social sustainability and is profitable at the same time (self supporting).

This vision resulted in not only setting up of the Chetna Organic Farmers Association (COFA)
as a farmers’ support organization focusing on the socio-technical extension, certification and other support services for these farmers, but also envisioned that COFA should facilitate/promote the setting up of a membership based producers company, Chetna Organic Agriculture Producers Company Ltd (COAPCL) that would engage in marketing and trading of cotton, pulses and other crops for the farmers (members).

Presently, COFA works with more than 10,000 small and marginal cotton farmers from the regions of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha. Its strong ethical supply chain represents partners such as i) ethical ginning factories in Maharashtra and Odisha ii) a integrated garmenting unit in Kolkata dedicated to making only organic and fair trade cotton garments and iii) brands who insist on buying garments made of COFA cotton.

Some of the key brands in the west that work with Chetna Cotton are – Marks & Spencer (UK), Remei AG/bioRe (Switzerland), H&M (Sweden), Jackpot (Denmark), Felissimo (Japan), etc.
COFA, while being certified for Fair trade as per the Fair Trade Labelling Organisation (FLO) Standards (www.fairtrade.net) for international markets is also part of consortiums that seek to promote ecologically and socially responsible farming/supply chains.

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