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A new film called True Cost reveals the human and environmental costs created by the fashion industry.
The film has been released by the Fairtrade Foundation and warns that we need to change the way we view fashion and reconnect with all the many people who work to bring us our clothes, starting with the cotton farmers as they are the ones who pay the real price.
While clothing prices hit rock bottom with a T shirt costing as little as £1.50, the human and environmental costs are sky rocketing in the multi-trillion dollar fashion industry.
Over 60% of the world’s cotton is produced by an estimated 100 million shareholder farmers. Of these, 90% are in developing countries and grow cotton on less than five hectares of land and are some of the poorest in the world. Up to 300 million people work in the cotton sector when family labour, farm labour and workers in ancillary services such as transportation, ginning, baling and storage are taken into account.
For farmers, the challenges range from the impact of poor prices for seed cotton, climate change, through to competition from highly subsidised producers in the US and china and poor terms of trade.
Subindu Garkhel, cotton manager at the Fairtrade Foundation, said: “It’s tragic that one of the unseen impacts of fashion today is that cotton is failing to provide a living income for millions of small-scale farmers. Fashion for a bargain – that’s what everyone wants.
“But a bargain comes at a price. The fact that prices continue to fall in the UK should be a wake-up call for shoppers: farmers and workers are paying the price of our high street bargains. Unless consumers and business are prepared to pay the true cost of our clothes, poverty will continue.”
True Cost was released worldwide on May 29 and is available to purchase on VOD from iTunes, Amazon and VHX, and DVD and Blu Ray.
