Bad Pants
Since we began as part of Make Poverty History in 2005, we have been working to fight poverty in everything we do and have supported many campaigns with our pants flashes. Now that we are 4, and we are working with a complete value chain right from cotton to bottom, we are launching a campaign that brings together our whole community – farmers, workers, retailers and consumers – around one issue: to rid the world of bad pants.
WHAT ARE BAD PANTS?
To us, bad pants aren’t just those abominable things that the lurk in the back of our drawers and chaff our precious bits when they should be caressed and cuddled. They are also the metaphor which describes some of the terrible things about the way that, in the worst cases, people are exploited and driven into poverty and despair.
Infested with pesticides, these bad pants support a system that, according to the World Health Organization, lets over 20,000 farmers die and millions more suffer chronic diseases each year from pesticide poisoning. Many of these deaths are very preventable and could be overcome by the actions of the communities if they were supported with Fairtrade and organic farming methods.
BANNING KILLER PESTICIDES
What most people don’t realise is that chemical pesticides simply aren’t necessary for most cotton farming. In India,farmers have been cultivating cotton for thousands of years using traditional techniques. Tragically though, although India is home to some of the most amazing natural pesticides like neem but these traditions have been pushed out in favour of these terrible pesticides.
One of the worst pesticides is one called endosulfan. It has been banned across 62 countries and thanks to the science that proves the case against this pesticide and the amazing work of organizations like Pesticide Action Network, the Environmental Justice Foundation and their many partners around the world, it is moving towards a global ban. It has been proven to take lives, proven to damage the environment and now, it is proven to make farmers more money to move to organic! (Download the fact sheet here).
In India, in an area called Kasargod in Kerala, endosulfan was sprayed from the air for around 20 years. This has left a terrible legacy of deformities, premature death and environmental destruction. The videos here demonstrate just how horrific the issue is.
OUR TARGET: BAYER CROP SCIENCES
BAYER are the last remaining major global brand still producing and distributing this vile pesticide even though it is proven that farmers can Banned in Europe, this European company sell this primarily to the poorest countries in the world – including to many farmers in India where they dominate the pesticides market.
We believe that this is wrong and that BAYER should live up to their responsibilities and support a global ban rather than fight it. 14 years ago, they also pledged to remove some of the most toxic pesticides from the Indian market. And they still have not yet done that!
Click here for the fact sheet and the list of their offices.
We’ve just organised a GLOBAL bad pants amnesty to kick the campaign off!! Check out the images in the slideshow below!
We don’t belive in simply ranting about the problems though… check out the below for the solutions!
