The female cotton pickers behind your clothes – and the climate change threat they face in Azerbaijan

New varieties of cotton being introduced to local fields could help solve some farmers’ greatest complaint – that prices for their raw materials are so low, sapping their incentive to keep growing.

The next step to make the cotton industry more viable, experts say, is to add value domestically. In 2022, 99 per cent of Azerbaijan’s cotton was exported as a raw product.

“Okay, we are producing cotton now, more than in the beginning of the 2000s, but it’s the same situation as oil. We’re exporting only cotton. We are not producing something,” said Mr Toghrul Valiyev, an independent economist based in Baku.

“We have resources, raw materials, and I don’t know why we’re not making investments to do something with them,” he said.

One exception is GP Cotton Holdings, a fully integrated cotton and textile business, working with 8,000 cotton farmers. 

Its chairman, John Young Simpson – also the managing partner of Bluegrass Partners, an agribusiness investment and advisory firm based in Singapore – says sustainability needs to be baked into the entire production chain for cotton to remain viable.

He said there are “massive low-hanging fruits in agriculture in Azerbaijan” due to the slow uptake of mechanisation in the supply chain. He sees big opportunities to be more efficient and innovate to improve yields and value.