It's been a busy few weeks for the farm team in South America - meetings in Paraguay with our partner ICCO to look at market development strategies and overall strategies for supporting the growing organic and agro-ecological sector. A farmers' meeting in Quixada, Ceara State, in Brazil, followed by a supply chain meeting in Sao Paulo, to look at ways to support the growing regional market for organic cotton in South America and to find out about new initiatives - such as attempts to revive Sea island cotton in the Carribean under an organic system.
From there, some of us headed to Dublin in Ireland to take part in a public event and a business forum on the 24th and 25th of April, called 'ReDress', to look at stimulating the market for organic textiles in Ireland. A very succesful event that shows, along with South America, that the potential for growth in organic cotton consumption and production remains high.
The next stop is the Africa regional meeting in Uganda at the end of June; before that there will also be the IFOAM Textiles Conference in Carpi, Italy.

Alfonso Lizarraga talking in Sao Paulo