World Cotton Day will be celebrated across the world on Thursday, October 7. In neighbouring Bangladesh, a rally and a seminar are scheduled to be held that day.
Cotton USA will be holding a seminar ‘Cotton for Good’ in “honor of World Cotton Day”. In Germany, Bremen Cotton Exchange will celebrate the day together with the cotton community. Similar events are scheduled elsewhere as well.
The United Nations announced that it will approve designating October 7 every year as World Cotton Day on its permanent calendar. First launched in 2019 at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) headquarters in Geneva, World Cotton Day continues to grow each year.
The WTO welcomed the UN decision following a proposition by Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali. The resolution acknowledges the vital role cotton plays in several countries by providing livelihoods and as a subsistence crop for millions of people, as well as its broader economic and social impacts around the world.
“The UN resolution on World Cotton Day recognises the importance of cotton for millions of people and acknowledges the work undertaken in the WTO since the launch of the cotton initiative in 2003. It is also a recognition of the excellent cooperative spirit between all the international, regional and national partners involved,” said WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
On World Cotton Day, stakeholders from the global cotton community come together to speak on the many benefits of cotton including the facts that:
- Cotton is grown in over 70 countries and provides an income to hundreds of millions of people every year.
- A single ton of cotton provides year-round employment for an estimated five or six people (often in some of the most impoverished places on earth.)
- Cotton is the only agricultural crop to provide both food and fibre.
- Cotton has a negative carbon footprint and degrades 95% more than polyester in wastewater helping to keep our land and water clean.
For the event theme for 2021 'Cotton for Good', to celebrate the fibre's enduring positive impact, a virtual celebration will feature notable speakers such as Bert Jacobs, CEO and Co-Founder of Life is Good, and Maxine Bédat, Director of New Standard Institute. Other global industry experts include Cotton Council International, Viterra India, International Cotton Advisory Committee, Better Cotton Initiative, and African Cotton Foundation.
Keynote topics include responsible fashion, sustainability, and the importance of cotton in countries around the world. You can click on this site for registration: https://cottonusa.6connex.com/event/WorldCottonDay/login
To learn more about the activities planned for World Cotton Day, please visit www.worldcottonday.com.
