Sourcery today introduces “best in class” Direct-to-Grower Programme Partners that include four leading farm groups, gin, and merchant organizations in India. These organizations include Amiha Agro, Delight Group, Basil Commodities, and OM Organic, who each have made a multi-year commitment to ‘transforming trade for good’ that includes driving forward commercial and environmental excellence across their operations, programmes, and in the production and sale of cotton fibre through Sourcery’s Direct-to-Grower Programme.
Through Sourcery’s engagement with these organizations and the deployment of its farm-level interventions with over 10,000 individual growers, Sourcery anticipates an estimated 10,000 MT (60,600 Indian cotton bales) of cotton will be available for purchase for this coming season. As an industry first, much of this cotton will include primary verified data that captures the grower identity and household information, farm type and location, qualified agronomic practice details, transaction payment verification, and traceability of raw fibre volumes from the grower farms to the gins owned by the four Grower Partners. This data will be available for purchase under licence separately from the cotton fibre itself directly from the Grower Partners at the time of transacting fibre or through Sourcery (purchasing data requires membership).
“Already these organizations are trusted market leaders in Indian cotton,” said Crispin Argento, Managing Director of Sourcery. “Through Direct-to-Grower, they are redefining what sustainability means when it comes to quality, integrity, transparency, and social and environmental impact in cotton. They are rewriting the rules of trade.”
As best-in-class Grower Partner organizations, more than 100,000 MT (600,000 bales) of fibre will be made available this season through Sourcery in total. Although this fibre does not include the verified primary data attributes as the volumes above, it will come from growers that will likely be enrolled in the programme in the near future.
“We are inclusive of all growers, everywhere. Many of these growers are already growing preferred fibre under organic, regenerative and Better Cotton agronomy”, said Ruchita Chhabra, Grower Engagement Director of Sourcery. “They are already leaders in cotton sustainability and they too deserve to be recognized and rewarded for their commitment to commercial and environmental excellence.”
Through its trade facilitation services, Sourcery will promote this fibre to spinners, fabric mills, assembly and brands and retailers around the world who believe in building a better future for the cotton trade that is more transparent, fair, efficient, whereby performance attributes and claims around quality, integrity, social and environmental impact are more meaningful, more measurable and fully verified.
Provisional Partnership Programme
To support these Grower Partners and the growers behind them, Sourcery will introduce its Provisional Partner Programme, inviting up to 10 spinners or vertical manufacturers to join Sourcery under a deferred membership payment scheme.
Provisional Partners will get to experience the benefits that come with transparency, fairness, and efficiency in trade through Direct-to-Grower without an upfront financial commitment.
They will be able to demonstrate their shared commitment to transforming trade for good by driving demand together and procuring a minimum volume of fibre from these Grower Partners this season before becoming full members early next year.
Sourcery will launch its next phase of Direct-to-Grower, which includes releasing its free Sourcery Connect app to the public. It is the first of its planned digital transformation to become a digital trade and community platform for the world’s leading growers, manufacturers, traders and brands who are committed to transforming trade for good.
