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I read the other day a very honest account from Saffia Minney, the founder of People Tree, of the difficulties she has had establishing the People Tree brand in the UK.
This is interesting, I had long had questions about People Tree, I couldnt believe they were making the amount of profit their profile suggested, and I suspected the deep pockets of Ms Minney and her banker husband were being explored with regularity.
Talking to people in Eco fashion over the last few years, I have heard many complaints about People Tree, and their percieved success, despite the fact that the quality wasnt considered particularly good by those who spoke to me. Having never properly examined any people tree produce myself, I cant comment on that.
I have however seen other firms go out of business over the last few years, shops and clothing producers. These were the people who had gone for it, stuck their necks out and taken the risks, but without any seriously big money or marketing nowse behind them.
I have watched with interest as Howies have apparently turned an economic corner, on their way to being a stable brand along side the likes of Fat Face, with high street shops in fashionable places. But Howies of course owe that in part to their relatively new owners Timberland. When I first came across Howies, I think they would have run a mile from Timberland, (maybe I’m wrong) but now they seem happy to be part of the American giant’s family.
All this is interesting and sobering for me, as I continue to explore establishing my own clothing business. It makes me glad I didnt rush into it, and even more so now as I seem to have found a business partner who has the same heart as me, and all the logistical arrangements already in place to make a great business. But if People Tree cant make the books balance yet in the UK (it took them eight years in Japan, still counting here) how long will it take us to do so?
And yet there is something right about it all, until we get to the point where cheap exploitative clothing is no longer the standard we measure everything else by, and we no longer think that good quality clothing made in proper conditions by fairly treated, well supported producers is ‘unaffordable’ then there is a lot of very worthwhile, even necessary work to do.
Hats off to Saffia Minney, hats off too to the people who tried to breakthrough, but didnt have the cash behind them to fall back on. You guys are heroes, and one day you will be shown to be right. You can be proud of what you have tried to do, and you will have something good to tell your grandchildren one day.
I do believe still that we should all consume less clothing by the way, and where possible make our own, buy second hand and so on, but I do recognise that new clothes do need to be made, and if we’re going to make them, it needs to be done properly, no more undercover slavery.
Previous posts on this sort of subject…
Ethical fashion - oh the difficulties; The terrible truth about ethical business
I’m going to run the Llanelli 10K on Sunday 22nd of June, well, I say run…
I’m going to try and run the Llanelli 10K, and if you want to encourage me to do so, please would you consider sponsoring me?
The funds will all go towards the Organic cotton project I have been working on in Cambodia. There is still a long way to go with this project, and a lot of funds needed, so any contributions will be welcome!
Anyway, to be honest, I reckon you’ve got a fair chance of keeping your money 
Please email me if you want to sponsor me, much obliged!
I’m in Grimsby now, having eventually got up here last night after a thoroughly enjoyable, if slightly tiring wonder around the UK. In edited highlights - the trip consisted of a cup of tea with Wes Sutton, leader of the Oasis Trust ‘church.co.uk‘ network, at the Oasis base in Waterloo. I was really impressed by what the network is doing in Waterloo, and excited to hear their plans for other projects, some alreadty on the go. Later that evening I returned to the same building, to hear Shane Claiborne speak about his experiences living as an Ordinary Radical. I found out about that event by signing up to a Chrisitan Anarchists mailing list, even though I’m not really an Anarchist. (Shhhh! Don’t tell!)
That night (Wednesday) was spent with Kyber and Mrs Netikos, at their flat in South London. Conversations ranged from virtual reality, to killlng sheep with bolt guns, to archery. And places in between.
Next day, I got to spend some quality time with a friend who wants to expand his clothing company to include a fully ethical range. He’s already working as hard as he can to ensure his suppliers meet the hghest standards of looking after their workforce, and is trying to integrate organic and fairly traded materials into his supply chain. Seems like I’ll be able to help him, which is great.
A bit of a rush over to Euston station then, where I was able to grab a few minutes with Dan Radice of Cokoon. It was good to find out what he’s up to, and to consider what possibilities there are for the future.
Off on to Northampton then, to spend some time with Julie, who is planning to join World Horizons in the summer. I also got a chance to meet Julie’s church, which is an interesting ecumenical fellowship in the heart of the town, very engaged with their community, and offering a whole load of services, from a shoppers coffee shop, to counselling rooms, and various other things throughout their five separate congregations.
On Friday I headed to Shrewsbury via Birmingham - Shrewsbury is home to Ian Matthews and his family. Ian is now working for Zondervan in the UK, but I remember him from our first meeting over ten years ago, when he came to work on a late and unlamented Christian magazine that I worked on at that time. Ian became a friend then, and has remained so, despite not having seen him for a long time.
It was fascinating to see how he and I, through very different paths and in relationship with very different people, have arrived at a very similar place theologically and philosophically (although he’s a left wing libertarian, and I’m not) - it was as surprising as it was encouraging. We both share the same desire to find a way of living in community as families that really works well - I think we agreed that the ideal scenario would be for a group of families to form an open cooperative, the co-op would then own the property, and the families would pay rent to it. Given that it nullifies the effects that personal ownership of property have, and allows for a vaiety of people to live in community in a wholesome way, it seems like the best option. Now, if we could find some other families in Grimsby who were up for that…
A reunion with Kelly and the kids (hooray) meant a short journey to Walsall where we spent the night, and after dispatching the kids to their Grandparents, we went off to the New Monasticism conference in Coventry - which was excellent. I shall blog further details of that soon.
A last laid back drive along the A46 took us all the way to Grimbo - and tea.
Some very talented and ambitious friends of mine are setting up a large scale organic cotton project in China. One day soon perhaps, I’ll be able to help them by marketing their enterprise in the UK and Europe, but right now I’m worried.
How can I take to the ethical marketplace, a Chinese project? The current backlash against the olympic torch, the promotion of the free tibet movement, the Zimbabwe debarcle, and general fears of China’s growing political and economic might, have swung the niche ethical consumers well and truly away from China.
Howies have had flack in the past for making their jeans there - they seem to have survived. But with big brands keeping a wary eye on their ethical products for signs of a dying off of demand… how can I convince the buyers that this excellent chinese project will actually be worth them becoming involved in?
I’ll post any progress…
Episode 2.
When I emerge from the hotel a flurry of baseball cap wearing men stare at me excitedly.
“Moto sir?”
“Te, Arkun.” (No thank you.)
“Sir, moto-bike?”
“Te.”
“Moto?”
“No, arkun.”
Endlessly they vie with one another for my precious custom, ‘pick me, pick me!’
A little further away from the hotel where competition is not so fierce, a brief discussion and a bargain is struck, the driver will take me to the riverside, a trip of perhaps ten minutes, for a dollar.
We set off, he pleased with his pay packet, I pleased to be paying only a dollar. Taking the usual anarchic approach to traffic laws that is prevalent here, we sail the wrong way up a road, and squeeze through ranks of traffic to head off down a side street.
Cutting across another line of traffic, we get back on a main road and the driver accelerates, to little effect. His is not the most powerful bike on the road, and I am not the lightest of passengers. Hefting onwards we pass a long row of stalls all offering mobile phone sim cards, not for the first time I try and work out the logic of so many stalls next to one another, all offering the same product for the same price.
On the back of a motorbike is one of the few places one is free from the constant cries of ‘moto’ or the demented clucking of ‘tuk tuk, tuk tuk’ at every street corner and empty stretch of pavement I chance upon when walking around. I try and work out why the moto drivers adopt this approach, surely they can see I’m walking, and when they’ve seen me turn down half a dozen other offers, they know I’m not going to accept theirs?
Arriving at the riverside I enter the air conditioned café fresco which sits at street level beneath the famous Phnom Penh foreign correspondents club. I’ve come here because I noticed on a previous trip to the riverside that they offer free wifi access after 3pm with every purchase of coffee. I opt for a hot chocolate rather than coffee, and eagerly try and log on to the wifi.
Predictably its something of a damp squib, I manage to download about four emails, all spam, and cant quite get on to my blog to make a new post. I turn on skype and eventually it connects. I look eagerly to see who is online. No-one.
At that point I realise it’s actually about 8.30 am in the UK, meaning that Kel will be getting the kids to school, and wont be online for at least another hour or so. By that time my half hour token will certainly have expired.
I sit back, my plan has been scuppered, partly due to my own lack of foresight, and partly due to the vagaries of supposed wifi access.
Turning off the laptop which I have hugged to my breast all the way from the hotel I pick up a newspaper and flick through it, while enjoying the last half of my hot chocolate. A big story here at the moment is the rise in fuel prices, it’s heading up to about a dollar a litre, which is bad news for the various members of society who are dependant upon travel for work. A Cambodian teacher is paid about 160,000 Riel a month. This translates as $40. Little more than a dollar a day. By contrast a garment factory worker is paid 200,000 Riel per month. Which of course translates as $50. Or about £25 at current exchange rates.
Reading on through the article I read a little vox pop from a moto driver. Bemoaning the hike in fuel prices he points out that his average wage is about 5000 riel a day. Half of which goes on fuel. Leaving him on 2500 Riel to pay for food and housing for him and his family. That’s a little over 50 cents, perhaps about 30p.
I resolve not to haggle too hard with moto drivers, and to have more patience with the insistent cries of ‘moto sir?’
Reading on through the paper I notice that on November the 2nd, a week or so before I arrived, a 61-year-old German man was arrested in the hotel across the street from mine. He was charged with debauchery after he was found with a 14-year-old girl in his room, and pictures of four other young girls on his computer.
Evidently he had chosen this hotel because it isn’t popular with westerners, and he was less likely to be reported to the police. Makes me feel great about staying in this part of town.
All around this country are people living in desperate poverty, scratching a living in anyway they can, selling whatever commodity they can. Its unsurprising that Cambodia is a key fixture on the sex tourism circuit now. Even the disgraced pop star Gary Glitter spent a little time here on his recent tour of Asia. There’s plenty more who want to be in Gary’s gang.
It’s hard to tell sometimes where the line is between genuine relationships and economically motivated ones. Some are obvious, a pair of young looking girls fawning attentively over a grotesquely overweight man in a bar, seems like they don’t have all that much in common. On the other hand I know a number of western men who have found genuine happiness in relationships with Khmer or Thai women here. It’s difficult not to judge, and harder still to get the judgements right! After all, its only recently really that marriage wasn’t a primarily economic issue.
Walking back to the hotel from the riverside I notice yet again many large Lexus’ and other four wheel drives zooming their occupants through the rush hour. Their sleek and shiny silver or black paint jobs contrasting with the muddiness of much of their surroundings. Behind sleek tinted windows rich Khmer or foreigners are being whisked home, or perhaps to the aptly named ‘Lucky’ supermarket for a spot of grocery shopping. I too visit Lucky’s occasionally to pick up a bit of food – I always think that Lucky is a good name for it. Lucky to be able to afford to shop here.
Lucky’s is still the biggest chain of supermarkets here, although others are beginning to catch up. I remember seeing a Tesco in Bangkok when I was there a couple of years ago, and wonder whether they have people even now assessing Cambodia’s potential for investment.
My dad’s field of work is Leprosy. It’s still a massive problem, although most people don’t realise it. We’ve all heard of the cure that has been around for some time, which can rid the sufferers of the disease. But what is not so well publicised is that still the same number of people contract the infection every year, in fact it may be more, as I have a feeling it’s the same percentage of the population. I’ll have to ask.
Leprosy is a disease which principally affects the nerves. Someone with leprosy will not feel any pain if they cut themselves, their body simply doesn’t acknowledge the injury.
I wonder how much we in the west have a kind of institutional leprosy, tucking ourselves away behind the tinted windows and air conditioning of luxury, refusing to feel the pain which is eating away at the flesh of the world.
Few things hurt us, perhaps a rise in oil prices may cause us some minor irritation, but largely we’re well insulated. Especially when we can even appease our consciences by sending some helpful charity donations – this is made even easier when we can do it via the medium of a tv show or big concert! Wow, how great to be part of something which can make us feel like we’re all working together, we can give a substantial donation, give of our ‘excess’ (how do we define excess by the way? What’s left over after we have paid our household bills, including sky subscription and credit card payments?) We get thanks from all around us for all that good what we did, and then go home happy…
We prefer to remain in our leprous state, ignoring the pain of the world and slowly letting our global body decay.
The other day I took a quick trip down to Wat Phnom, the small hill with a temple or Wat in its centre, which is quite a big tourist attraction here. To be honest it’s a little underwhelming. Good for its novelty value perhaps, but not exactly fascinating.
At the bottom of the hill a wide walk way lined with benches is home to a whole range of beggars, kids, hawkers and gawpers. It’s also the day time home of an elephant, and presumably permanent home to a family of monkeys.
The elephant is a Phnom Penh fixture, taking tourists on stately rides around the hill. He looks tired and dusty to me. I wonder why a massive creature like that allows himself to be tamed – whether he occasionally has a yearning for the wild, and entertains thoughts of escape and rampage. Or perhaps he is a simple, gentle soul, happy with his quiet life, ferrying white people around the circular track. Maybe he is content in his friendship with the monkeys and his handlers, and has no need for adventure.
The monkeys on the other hand are full of mischief, some are old and grumpy looking, gazing at you as if to decide whether you might harbour some food they could purloin. Others are sedate, sitting quietly taking in the scenery before bursting into a run and disappearing up a tree. Baby monkeys seem like they are about one third eyes, which reminds me of my youngest daughter. They scamper delightedly around the ground, playing traditional monkey games with one another.
Nearby are sellers – some offering large bunches of bananas, ‘Sir, you buy banana for Munk’ee?’ Others with large cages housing dozens of tiny little birds. I think of the little birds which love my garden at home, and feel sorry for these tiny creatures in their cage home.
“What are the birds for?” I ask warily.
The bird seller waves her hands in the air.
“To let them go?” I query.
“Yes sir. You let go. Two birds, one dollar.”
Presumably this is some kind of activity related to the temple above me, whatever the reason I’m not impressed. I want to free all the birds, but can’t afford to. I stalk off huffing to myself.
When Jesus was presented at the temple, according to Luke’s gospel, his parents presented two birds for sacrifice – in accordance with the law of the old testament. The offering of birds in sacrifice was for the poor, for those who couldn’t afford a more expensive sacrifice.
This all reminds me that Jesus was a poor man, a refugee, from a poor family, not a man of position and influence, not a man of wealth, nor as some suggest ‘moderately well off’. That’s a load of crap. He was a wondering teacher, unwaged as the custom dictated. Homeless, with no place to lay his head. His disciples would eat corn they found growing in the fields. To pay temple tax Peter had to look in the mouth of a fish. Jesus has much more in common with the Khmer bird sellers, prostitutes and moto drivers than he does with us wealthy westerners with our tinted windows, air con, and nice churches.
Walking past a book shop I looked over the display of books related to Cambodia – along side the usual travel guides and historical explanations of the Khmer Rouge regime’s genocidal activities, one title proclaimed boldly ‘Girls, Guns, Ganja and Gambling.’
Well they are certainly all available here for a moderate price, although I think the guns are less widely available than they were a few years ago. At one point penniless soldiers would take tourists to firing ranges where they could have a go with AK47’s, Grenade launchers, the lot. Talking to a guy on the plane on the way here he told me that in his first week visiting Cambodia he saw two shootings. So far I haven’t seen any. I hope it stays that way.
It remains a terrible thought that this country is a tourist destination because of what it can offer in terms of the other three ‘attractions’.
I did see a homeless guy though, by homeless I mean a rough sleeper, as homes here are often merely a step away from the homelessness in the UK. In Heathrow the rough sleepers I saw all had a certain look – indicative of problems with alcohol or other substance abuse, and perhaps mental health problems. Clearly they had to be pretty skint to be sleeping in a tunnel near Heathrow, but how much more skint does one have to be to sleep rough in Phnom Penh? Later I passed the same spot where the homeless guy had been curled up. The tatty Khmer flag which had covered him was now hung in a tree, and where he had been lying was a few fragments of broken glass.
I guess he had been ‘moved on’ by the police or local shopkeepers.
Episode 1.
Arriving in Phnom Penh in an aeroplane which had propellers on the wings – was not what I had expected. Having been delayed in Heathrow by two hours before setting off, when we made it to Kuala Lumpur there was precious little chance of making my connection.
Nevertheless dashing out of the plane, I found a man holding a sign saying transit to Phnom Penh – charging over to him I desperately asked where I should go for the Phnom Penh flight – he directed me to gate G10, and told me I would have to hurry.
Hurry I did, bowling along through the sedate ranks of travellers, already looking slightly dishevelled after an 11 hour flight, and finding suddenly that my bags were much too heavy to carry when running.
But within the 15 minute deadline I had made it to gate G10, flinging myself through the security with gusto, and presenting myself boarding pass in hand at the desk.
The Malay girl at the counter looked confused.
“You are going to Phnom Penh?” She asked.
“Yes!”
“From London?”
“YES!”
“This is not the gate for Phnom Penh. This is Phuket.”
I felt like I was going on a bear hunt… ‘You can’t go round it, you can’t go over it, oh no, you have got to go through it! Through the mud, squelch squerch, squelch squerch, through the river, splish splash, splish splash…’
Newly redirected to gate H10, I set off again, charging along like an out of breath red-faced animal, wild eyed and flailing. Reaching the gate I again attempted to breeze through security. But they found my contraband.
“I am sorry sir, we need to look in your bag”
“Yes, yes, ok, but please quick!”
They were not quick.
“I am sorry sir, but you can’t take this on the plane.” The stern security guard holds up the 120ml bottle of mosquito repellent purchased 13 hours before hand in Boots, in the Heathrow departure lounge.
I look at the guy…
“I bought that in Heathrow departure lounge!” I protest dimly.
“Nothing more than 100mls sir.”
“FINE!” I yell, grabbing bags and coat and sweatily heading towards the desk.
“Oh sir, you are late!”
“Yes, I know, I am on the delayed flight from London.”
“Oh sir, you are too late.”
“No! No I’m not!”
“Yes sir, too late.”
“But there’s the plane. I can see it!”
“Sorry sir, doors closed.”
“No! Please, please let me on the plane!”
“Sorry sir, you’re too late.”
“But, but, they sent me to the wrong gate… I ran all the way, but they sent me to the wrong place…”
“Sir, why didn’t you check?”
“Because I was running! And anyway, the guy wrote it on the boarding pass, look!”
“Very sorry sir. Too late.”
As I spoke I looked again at the plane, and saw the tunnel begin to retract from the doorway. At that point I realised the futility of my quest.
“My bags?” I bleated plaintively.
“Don’t worry sir, your bags are not on the plane.”
On hearing that, I was suddenly glad that I’m not either.
The next flight to Phnom Penh was leaving in 5 hours… via Ho Chi Min city.
“Great”, I thought, eating a chewy microwaved croissant, and trying fruitlessly to log on to the wireless signal to check email. I love it when wireless signal is partial… just enough to keep you trying, but not enough to actually do anything. So productive and encouraging.
Ho Chi Min was wet – dashing from plane to bus and later from bus to considerably smaller plane I could smell and hear the thunder and see the lightning crack above me.
“Great.” I thought. “Good flying weather.”
Despite the rather shaky flight I made it to a much drier Phnom Penh to be reunited with my baggage! Even better a friend turned up to take me to my hotel… where I checked in and slept the sleep of the dog tired traveller.
Easing myself through the first day I made it out to a friend’s house for a chat about business. In the early evening I got to a meeting with some friends which was great, and then headed off to meet a contact for a drink and a chat.
My drink and chat meeting went really well – we began to understand each other and things were feeling very positive, we come from pretty different points of view, he would probably describe himself as a bhuddist if anything, but I found myself agreeing with his comments about the problems concerning the church, and its triumphalist, imperialist approach to spreading the gospel.
As I stepped from the motorbike which took me back to the hotel, I noticed what seemed to be an unusual amount of activity in the street for the time of night. Heading up to my room I wondered again about what was happening outside.
Leaving the lights off, I walked to the window and looked out.
“That hairdresser’s is open unusually late” I mused, as I watched a group of young women mill around in front of the shop.
Then I watched as a motorbike rider pulled up outside the shop, and after a short conversation, one girl detached herself from the group, climbed on the back of the bike and rode off.
“Oh.” I thought.
For the next couple of hours I internally lamented the fact that the hotel I was booked to stay in for the next twelve nights was slap opposite a brothel.
Thinking that as a journalist I should attempt to document this outrage I held my phone up to the window, setting it on video capture mode I shot some footage of the girls milling around outside their workplace.
As I mused despondently on the tragedy of their situation in a country where the spectre of aids and other venereal disease looms large, and brutality is far from uncommon, I saw one of them glance up at the window where a dim glow was being emitted by the phone.
I withdrew it at once, feeling immediate shame at the fact that I was powerless to help these young women – and worrying that in filming them I had further commoditised their plight.
With the noise of the street and the sadness inside me I only got about four hours sleep that night.
Despite my lack of sleep, I managed to get to the shop, and internet café before being picked up from the hotel at 6.45 am.
After a brief moto ride, I jumped into the back seat of a slightly rusty Toyota pick up truck and headed out of the city.
There were eight of us in total – three people joined the original five, jumping in the back of the pick up, and clinging to the sides as we jostled through the traffic.
Looking out of the back window I saw one of the rear passengers was a young woman, and felt an immediate pang of guilt. Why was I sitting in the air conditioned interior when she was perched in the trailer?
At the next stop I made my move – “Would you like to go inside?” I asked, feeling noble.
After about five minutes of hurtling along the road, overtaking lorries and swerving to avoid rogue motorbikes, I no longer felt so noble.
I began to think of those games you play sometimes, when you have to choose who would be thrown out of a sinking boat. If you can only carry three people in the boat, and four people are in it, then who should be chucked out?
As the needle wobbled around the 80 mark, I began to think that while I may have done a good thing letting the girl take my place in the relative safety inside the car, I doubted my wife and kids would share my feelings should an accident happen.
I looked at my two companions in the trailer, both wearing motorbike helmets, and felt the inadequacy of my own floppy sun hat, as the brim slapped me in the eye.
I then began to wonder if my travel insurance would cover this kind of activity… somehow I doubted it.
A good chat at the village ended with me being given a bunch of picked cotton, which was very exciting. As we talked and laughed, me mostly laughing as I had no real idea what was being said for most of the time, I felt a sense of comfort and community. I watched puppies scamper on the ground nearby, and heard goats bleat from their small home a few feet away.
I began to wonder what would be for lunch, my usual vegetarian status had been updated to ‘freegan’ or ‘eat whatever I’m given’ setting as is usual when I’m travelling in places like this. Still my stomach doesn’t like meat, and doesn’t cope terribly well with digesting it these days.
Then one of my friends from the back of the pick up, who had come to teach the village kids, turned to me with glee. “Today they kill goat!”
“Oh good.” I thought.
The goat was surprisingly tender, although one piece that I had was suspiciously spherical. I managed to avoid the sour soup and stick with the goat, which was curried beautifully. The rice was local, and it tasted very good, my friends didn’t seem to mind that I ate mainly rice, leaving them to attack the goat curry and sour soup with gusto.
When I was a child we had goats. In my memory we lived in a kind of rural idyll – and I often long to go back to it. Our goats (the ones I remember) were called Nanny and Skippy. We didn’t eat them
One of them I recall eating washing from the line, and once or twice I remember one goat having an identity crisis and thinking it was a sheepdog, rounding up sheep in the pasture behind our house.
Our goats were, I’m sure, a bigger kind than the sort kept by the Khmer. Even so, I felt sentimentally sorry for the goats I saw living in a kind of goat prison, raised up from the ground on stilts. I have a fairly utilitarian view of these kind of animals, but I do like to see them kept in greater comfort.
I took another look at the goat prison, and felt a sudden jolt as I realised that one enterprising guy had managed to get out of the prison’s inner sanctum, and perch on the outside edge of the goat house, about ten feet from the ground.
I don’t think that goat would have any real problem jumping from such a height – they are such strong creatures. But this one was making no attempt at further escape. He just looked at me with deep dark eyes – lacking the confidence to take the next step which would lead to an attempt at freedom.
“Perhaps,” I considered, “He just has nowhere to go. No escape route seems open to him. Perhaps he lacks the necessary self confidence to go it alone, away from what he knows. He just feels trapped.”
In my mind the goat became the young prostitute who had gazed dimly up at the window the previous night. Meat for someone, a commodity, a possession for another. Lacking the escape route, the self confidence necessary to make a change – living a life that she is trapped in.
Arriving back in Phnom Penh after another two hours in the pick up trailer clinging on for grim death, I thought about the journey. I had clung to the side, feeling the peril of the journey, while one guy simply sat on the ice box they had taken for water. Seemingly unnerved by the perils of the journey, only occasionally did he lurch forward or back when we took a sharp turn or braked suddenly.
On the way back to my hotel I made a detour via a shop and bought some cotton wool to put in my ears and perhaps help me get some sleep that night.
Only when I got to my room did I consider the irony of having bought a bag of cotton wool balls, when I had just returned from the village with a bag of raw, organic cotton. “Ho hum.” I thought.
At the hotel I needed to pay for my room, taking the plunge and confirming the booking there for the remainder of my stay, I handed over the money. The manager gave me a sly glance.
“You want a girl? In your room?”
“Oh! No – no thank you!”
“Why not?”
“Um, well, I mean, I’m married!”
“Oh.”
I twisted my wedding ring around my finger as if for good luck, the manager gave me another sideways look, clearly unimpressed by my reasoning, and wondering whether to strengthen his pitch.
Before he got the chance I was in the lift and heading up to my room for a sound night’s sleep, wishing all the while that I’d been able to come up with a better off-the-cuff response.
finally got round to getting on the blog while I’m here, so in the next two posts you will find two travelog type essays giving some of the flavour of what I’ve been thinking and doing here.
Hope its of interest, back in the UK soon with news of cotton!
tonight I head off for Cambodia - this trip feels like the least well prepared trip I have taken in a long time, because of my own stupidity and emails not getting to people when they should have, I’m not even sure where I will be staying when I get there… ho hum.
However, it’s good to be out of your comfort zone… isnt it?
And I am excited by the potential of this cotton project to move forward, I got prices through the other day for ginning and baling equipment, which may be a worthwhile investment at some point in the not too distant future, certainly if there is a business oportunity for someone not directly involved in the farming side of things, that is where it lies.
I promise to try and take some good photos and post them up… honest, I really will.
Is this undeveloped ground ripe for transformation into a cotton farm?
I sent out an email tonight about the cotton project I’m working on, given that I’m back off to Phnom Penh again in a couple of weeks, I thought I should try and update people.
For those of you who didnt get the email (my fault for certain!) I’ve pasted most of it below - happy reading.
First a quick catch up: About three years ago I was prompted to begin working on setting up a fair trade garment business in Cambodia. The vision for this enterprise was to enrich and empower impoverished people, make great clothes and make an impact socially and environmentally. This is part of what I see as taking the gospel – the good news of the Kingdom of God – to the many people who are least reached in the world. The bible tells us that the kingdom of God is justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, there is no getting away from the fact that this affects bodies as well as souls!
Cambodia like many countries has many who live in dire poverty, and that has been made unusually bad in some situations, by the dreadful civil war which wiped out huge numbers of Khmer people, and set the development of the country back many years.
Anyway, the garment enterprise hit a number of obstacles. One of the key factors was that upon investigation, it transpired that none of the ‘ethical’ manufacturers in Phnom Penh that I met, were using materials which were totally ethically sourced. Instead they were relying on imports of poor quality materials, which had been produced in questionable conditions. In short – there were severe supply chain issues.
On investigating this further – I realised that the best way to take this project forward would be to start from the ground up, and work on developing the raw materials. In particular I could see the amazing potential offered by organic cotton production in Cambodia. I was inspired by what I saw of other organic cotton projects in other countries.
One particularly successful project was set up in India – the aim of that project was to alleviate the plight of small holder cotton farmers who were struggling for survival. The project’s stated aims were: “to address the problems of bankruptcy, rural-urban migration, deteriorating soil and water quality, crop vulnerability to pest attacks, and market access in an effort to create economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable livelihoods for smallholder cotton farmers. The objective of the project was to create more vertical supply chains to open the market for organic fair trade cotton.”
This project has gone on to be successful in every way – an evaluation survey of some of the small holders later found that: “90% reduced their indebtedness, 98% experienced less financial hardship, 58% saw a check in urban migration, and 100% attributed reduced incidences of illness in their families to the adoption of organic cultivation.”
You can read more about the Agrocel project here and visit their website too.
My aim is now to establish a project with similar redemptive qualities in Cambodia.
Last year I visited Cambodia again with some friends who were able to advise me on different areas of production. Together we visited potential sites for growing cotton, and made a number of contacts who were interested in helping with the project in different ways.
In particular we were taken to a village where some land is available for the start of such a project – it is peopled by former Khmer rouge soldiers. The village also has a school set up by an NGO to teach agricultural techniques. In some respects it seems like an ideal place to start the project.
This summer along with the rest of my family I visited Phnom Penh for a few days, and during this visit I was introduced to someone who had previously grown cotton successfully just outside of Phnom Penh.
At the beginning of November I will return again to Cambodia – this time for two weeks, to try and see if I can marry the diverse elements which currently exist together, and try and get some cotton growing. Of course this is only the first hurdle. Although there exists a huge market for Organic cotton, because there is currently none grown in Cambodia, finding someone either to buy the raw cotton, or to process it locally still remains a challenge. However this does not seem insurmountable – the possibility of seeing real transformation at a community level is getting closer!
I would like to ask you to pray for the project over the next few weeks – this is likely to be a crucial time.
After last year’s trip I ended up wasting a lot of time by being distracted - I don’t want to waste time like that again.
My hope is that through this project, and others like it, we can make a significant impact on the lives of people in desperately needy communities. Moreover, as Cambodia is heavily dependent on garment production for its export economy, and currently it imports all its raw materials – we could make a significant impact on the economy of the nation should organic cotton production take hold in Cambodia!
I’m some way out of my teens, but I still want to see the world changed – I hope you do too.
If you are willing to pray for this project, these are some points I’d like to ask for prayer on:1) That the links in the chain would fall into place – that none of those important links would be missing!
2) That funding would come through in order to pay for the materials and so on which are necessary if we are to get this thing started.
3) God’s grace for both my family and me, as we are apart again.
4) Wisdom and discernment as I deal with lots of different people – all with different motivations.
If you know of someone who might be interested in being involved in this, or another organic cotton project, then please direct them to me, a basic description of the project is to be found on the organic cotton project page of this site.
If you have any questions – about any aspect of this project, I’d be delighted to try and answer them.
I wasnt going to do this, but I am getting searches showing up on my site for Nick Mason linked to cotton.
I was working with Nick for a while on a cotton project, and I think I know him pretty well - if you are considering working with Nick - please email me.
I’m off to Cambodia again in November to see if we can move the organic cotton project on a bit - unfortunately I’ve just spent the best part of a year being led up a garden path by someone who shall remain nameless… he knows who he is… a lot of time has been wasted, and when you are dealing with very poor people, time is valuable!
So I think it’s back to where I left off, working on setting up a small community based project. I think I can get the seeds, the land too shouldnt be a big problem, the expertise is at hand, now the next stage is fiding someone who can process the stuff - no point in growing it if we can’t sell it.
I’m considerably happier about the idea of setting this up on a small scale again, it allows the project to be much more personal, and to have a real community level impact. Hopefully too it should be replicateable and scalable - in other words there should be some sustainability built in, something which is far from guaranteed when one works on a larger/commercial scale.
I am encouraged, although to be honest still annoyed at having wasted so much time on someone elses’ ego trip.
More as it develops… and yes I am looking for people who can process cotton on a small scale (or any scale) in Cambodia, so if you can help me in any way, please let me know!
I missed this one the other day, but it will go some way to encouraging us all (I hope) to abandon our old non organic cotton ways… and those Uzbeks eh!?
thanks so much to those who have written to me recently concerning the organic cotton project, sorry if I havent written back yet, I will!
A couple of interesting updates on the cotton thing, I met a guy in Cambodia who may be able to supply me with some very special cotton seeds, he’s an incredible bloke who has been experimenting with a whole load of cool agricultural things, including odourless pigs - yeah honestly! Pigs who live in a deep litter of rice husks, the manure gets absorbed by the husks, consequently it doesnt smell, after a few months he mucks the blighters out, and uses the manure and husk compost to grow stuff. I’m not going to tell you how he farms fish…
I have also applied for some funding to take this project forward, if I can get the cash together I shall be heading to Cambodia again in October/November time to see if we can get some of these seeds planted. Woo hoo.
well after a lightning fast visit to Cambodia, and an overnighter in Singapore, we’re now in the Phillipines, where I at last have decent internet connection again… but still nothing important to say
Actually some interesting movement on the cotton growing front in Cambodia, where I met someone who has grown organic cotton on a small scale there, and is willing to get involved in a larger scale program, also great to see others of our friends there, who do incredible work with people who melt your heart.
We’re in the Phillipines for a fortnight on holiday, and I’ll blog some more while we’re here, but just to say that I heard from Wales that the celebration was awesome… still waiting for more details on that score.
Back soon!
a good edition of the moral maze on tonight (weds) - all about ethical trade, after the “surprise” news this week about supermarkets buying stuff from sweatshops… gosh, I can’t believe it, I honestly thought they were buying their incredibly cheap and poor quality clothing from high quality manufacturers who were paying their workers a good wage!
Moral Maze, always worth checking out for decent debate and analysis.
An article in the guardian/observer tells the tail of how animal tails, an ethical teeshirt company got going - sounds tough.
But to be honest, it seems to me that they had it relatively easy. There is no mention of limited funds, which is usually an important part of the equation for small ethical labels. These guys were at least seemingly able to absorb the hits they took on dodgy quality.
They have also decided they can sell teeshirts, which is a big ask in ethical fashion terms - everybody sells teeshirts! They have clearly done significant makrket research though, so I’m sure they know what they are doing.
Also, they seemed happy(ish) to source from Turkey or India - wherever they could get stuff from, they weren’t tied to a particular country which many ethical labels are.
And perhaps best of all, they just got a nice bit of PR courtesy of the afore mentioned national newspaper - which wont do them any harm!
Nobody is even mentioning the whole ‘buy less stuff’ side of things, so I wont spoil the party.
Good article on treehugger today, looking at a recent oxfam report which explains how a cut in US subsidy for homegrown cotton could massively benefit the developing world.
Here’s a snapshot: “…Previous studies my colleagues and I have done clearly show the trade distorting effects of US cotton subsidies by lowering the world price of cotton, with results at the aggregate level,” says Daniel Sumner, director of the University of California Agricultural Issues Center and one of the authors of the Oxfam report. “But these new numbers show that even a modest increase in the world price of cotton that only partly reaches the farmer could greatly improve the daily lives of some of the world’s poorest people, and could literally mean that millions of poor people could be fed.”
For the typical cotton-growing West African household of 10, who live on less than a dollar a day per person, cotton is often the only source of income. According to the Oxfam study, a complete removal of U.S. cotton subsidies would jack up the world price of cotton by 6 to 14 percent, resulting in a 5 to 12 percent increase in the prices that West African farmers receive for their cotton…”
Come on USA, walk the talk, lets stop bolstering up your economy at the expense of millions of lives!
Just seen the guardian article about the craziness of ethical materialism.
”The environmental movement has often been compared to a religion - the kind of religion that sets great store by self-denial, purity, and a personal route to salvation. Increasingly, however, it is hard to think of a religion that spends this much time shopping. Go to almost any green website - campaigning, as well as commercial - and you discover that the journey to perfect sustainability can be a distinctly materialistic and costly one, requiring not only the replacement of unsatisfactory cars, boilers and windows and the acquisition of a worm farm, allotment and wind turbine, but the discovery of an entirely new consumer identity, whereby the born-again green learns to spend more money, but with a clear conscience.”
I have to say that I agree with some of the sentiments expressed, the only real ethical way to consume is to cut consumption down. Stop buying stuff.
Slightly dissapointingly the article sites the same old cliched companies… what a surprise…
And it points out that the afore mentioned yoghurt that is setting out to save the world, is part owned by Danone… doh.
Proves my earlier point about selling out to the man.
Of course I’m just proving my own hypocrisy by having links to stuff you can buy from my blog…
A well spent afternoon today, discussing issues concerning the production of organic cotton, and the practicalities of running an ethical business.
Such meetings leave me feeling exhausted, partly in a good way, as I am glad to be able to put effort into things which make a difference. But also there is a negative side, as conversation often takes a turn for the depressing when one examines the reality of ethical business.
There is a real question over whether many of the ethical brands we see out there are really sustainable.
Some of the biggest name brands have severe difficulties making the books balance, and are reliant on the deep pockets of supportive investors, who are concerned more with doing some good, than getting financial return.
If you have, like me, spent a lot of time talking to retailers and consumers of ethical clothing, you would hear a lot of negative information about some of the biggest ‘name brands’ in the industry. And yet those brands continue to be seen as the best.
Why? Well in part it is because of journalists, (I know, I’m guilty) who return to the same old people everytime they want to site an ethical trader. Inevitably, they are going to be the people who have spent a lot of money getting their name known.
And that is the second part - money. One of the brands I refer to in the preceding paragraphs is run by someone whose partner is a big time banker - (not a euphemism) which makes riding out those pesky sales problems a lot easier.
Another of the biggest brands, and this time I can name them - Howies ( great clothes, great catalogue, great brand, great blog etc) - had to sell out to Timberland in order to sustain the growth they needed to acheive.
In business its grow or shrink, and if you shrink, you aint gonna last. They needed to grow, and the only way they felt they could do so was to effectively sell out. As it goes I dont blame them, after all, the founders had remortgaged their home a number of times, etc etc, and it isnt like they arent doing their bit.
I know of other brands, who I cant name for reasons of commercial sensitivity, who appear very succesful, but are in fact struggling hugely, and only able to survive because of constant baling out.
I hear many other tales from people who say that they are only just surviving, unable to even think about starting to pay back the original investments, others are doing less well.
Occasionally I hear about people who are doing better, because they have found a way of making it work, and generally that has to do with staying small, meeting local needs.
So it appears that the terrible truth about ethical business is that when independent ethical brands try to take on the competition, they collapse under the strain.
The ones which do have what it takes to succeed in the big wide world - Howies, Green and Blacks, etc, are snapped up by bigger, less ethical companies. Notable exception of course - Patagonia, which took its own unique route, chronicled in Yvon Chouinard’s excellent book which you can see in my side bar.
Staying small, a business may survive, and perhaps flourish in the right market - but in clothing there is a problem, meeting the minimums. You must order a minimum quantity of product which would perhaps be 400 garments per colour.
So say you wanted to do a tee-shirt range, which you would manufacture yourself, and you wanted four different colours, you would need to order 1600 garments. A tall order for a brand new outfit. Especially since the price you pay per unit at minimum order level is much higher than you would on a big order, so your profit is immediately lower.
Some small brands buy blanks off companies like SAF or others which offer much lower minimum order quantities, but at much higher unit prices, plus you need to relabel and so on. So you’re caught between a rock and a hard place.
Of course the finishing of an ethical garment, (if you are using safer dyes or less harmful printing) is also more expensive, and often more prone to problems, than conventional harmful processes. The small ethical brands lose out again.
And that isnt all, if you were to go to a big retailer - I notice Next and New Look are among the high street brands using organic cotton now, and were to ask their buying department ( Ihavent tried this yet - so I may be wrong, but I bet I am not) where the cotton they use comes from, they wont know. Why? Because they simply buy it through an agent, who buys it from somebody else, and etc and so on, until at the bottom of the chain somewhere you get to the farmer.
What I am saying is that the accountability of this sort of product is always suspect, because unless you can trace your cotton from seed to shelf (this can be done, and some are doing it) then you cant really have a truly ethical supply chain.
Clear audit trails are key in ethical business, and as far as I know, the big chains cant provide that in most cases. The smaller ones sometimes can, but not always.
This my friends, is the terrible truth about ethical business.
What is the conclusion of this long and rambling spiel? When you have to buy stuff, keep buying ethical products. Buy local as much as possible, buy second hand as much as possible. Support the smaller pioneering ethical enterprises, with more customers they might be able to break a decent profit one day. Dont be fooled by the hype, your best way of finding good ethical product is by word of mouth, and a bit of research.
And if, like I was today, you are in Ammanford any time soon, stop by Damien and Michelle’s Organic Pantry, which is a good example of how a small, ethical, local business can do well - and serve a community. Their shop is cool, their veg boxes are excellent, and their teeshirts are really good too. I only popped in for a couple of minutes, but it was worth it. They are nice people.
I have a meeting in Ammanford this afternoon, its a small town not far from Llanelli, where I live.
The interesting thing (to me) about Ammanford is that it has an unusual amount of green companies and people doing business there, for instance:
Okay, so it isnt Machynlleth, which is a remarkable little place, full of all kinds of eco enterprises, but that is (in my opinion) down to the amount of hippies who went there and settled down, starting green businesses. Ammanford doesnt have hippies wandering the streets, its just an ordinary Welsh town, but with some wonderful and extraordinary people.
For the eco tourist by the way - Wales is the place to come. In fact, its pretty nice if you’re eco inclined or not.
A very sad story about illegal logging in Cambodia, I can testify that on visiting certain out of the way places in that country, looking at potential cotton farming areas, I’ve been mistaken for an anti logging activist.
Certainly illegal logging appears to be going on in areas which have close ties to senior government ministers - I’m a witness.
This is exactly the kind of problem which is ruinous to the world in general, and in particular to places like Cambodia, which are already suffering so much.
Organic cotton is very hard to come by. The scarcity has led some to call it ‘white gold’ because a good supply can be very valuable. To others the scarcity is a worry, mainly because if demand continues to outstrip supply, the demand may well begin to dry up.
More and more companies are beginning to convert to Organic cotton in small percentages. Manufacturers like Nike and Marks and Spencer among others have actually led the way in this.
Out front there have always been the small guys of course.
If you are interested in sourcing Organic cotton for your clothing range, or for a smaller project, then get in touch, and I can pass on some suggestions. For big business, I would suggest, as a first port of call, organic exchange, which is very good indeed.
For more info on Organic cotton generally, (and why I believe - along with others that it is very much part of the future of the garment industry) please see articles linked to the tag cotton in the sidebar.
