How Better Cotton Helps To Promote Gender Equality

Hawes & Curtis is committed to improving cotton farming practices globally with the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). By buying cotton products from us, you’re supporting more sustainable cotton farming. Learn more. 

All over the world, farmers growing more sustainable cotton are benefiting from the real economic, social and environmental advantages it offers. None of this would have been possible without the influence of BCI. Here’s just one example of how Better Cotton has helped a female farm-worker in Pakistan to fulfil her dream of economic independence…

Following her mother’s footsteps, Ruksana Kausar married a cotton farmer when she was young. Like many women in her community — where cotton communities farm the land to survive — Ruksana works hard on her family’s cotton farm, sowing seeds, weeding the fields and picking cotton amid the searing heat of Punjab. Yet as a woman in rural Pakistan, where societal ingrained gender bias prevents women from being treated equally to men, she doesn’t participate in business decisions and has little say in how the farm’s profits are spent.

In 2018, at a village meeting, Ruksana saw a presentation that immediately sparked her interest. Samina Kausar, a WWF-Pakistan1 representative told the group about an opportunity that her organisation, in partnership with the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), had created to support local women to improve their livelihoods. Ruksana listened as Samina described how the organisations would support women like her to cultivate their own tree nurseries, selling the saplings to generate new revenue streams for themselves and their families.

Ruksana is one of 7,000 women in Punjab’s Rahim Yar Khan District involved in the tree nursery project developed by BCI and WWF-Pakistan. By taking part in the project, Ruksana supplemented her income with 5,500 rupees in the first season, selling 550 plants back to WWF at a rate of 10 rupees per plant. In addition, she and her family have planted approximately 35 of the Acacia trees on their cotton farm, providing farm-workers with shelter from the hot sun once they have matured.

Ruksana’s new-found economic independence strengthens her voice in how the family’s income is spent, while supporting her community with a reliable, affordable source of good quality trees for their farms.

“Other women in my community come to me for tips about how they can run a successful tree nursery business at home, and my sister-in-law is now interested in developing her own tree nursery after seeing my progress and income,” concludes Ruksana. “I hope more women in Pakistan have the opportunity to contribute to their family and community, building the skills and confidence to achieve fulfilment through economic independence.”