Learn more about the Paraiba Cotton Project

This environmental, social and economic sustainability project is based on the planting of colored cotton with a guaranteed purchase contract. Developed by
Natural Cotton Color, in the state of Paraíba, the “Projeto Algodão Paraíba” (Paraiba Cotton Project)  aims to meet the growing demand for textile inputs for the sustainable fashion industry.

Since 2016, Natural Cotton Color has been supplying small, medium and large weaving mills with cotton feathers grown in the Margarida Maria Alves settlement, in Juarez Távora, a rural region of the state located in the Northeast of Brazil.

In 2019, it expanded cultivation in the Fazenda Campos settlement, among other small communities in the surroundings. More recently, the municipalities of Ingá and Itabaiana were included in the project.

There are already more than 600 hectares of planted area, involving around 300 families of farmers gathered in rural areas in settlements and traditional communities in Paraíba, Northeast region of Brazil.

Organic cotton feathers, knits and fabrics have been exhibited since 2017 at Premiére Vision Paris. Since 2019 they have been in the Smart Creation area, a space for innovative products for the Sustainable Fashion segment. Sales are carried out through this and other fairs and events, serving wholesale and retail. There are also sales to industries and clothing throughout Brazil.

Textile innovation and social technology

The Algodão Paraíba Project aims to strengthen the Local Productive Arrangement included in the smallholder production chain – always organized in family farming associations, including traditional quilombola communities. The expectation is that there will be more and more territories in 2022, making the State of the Northeast a reference in this raw material and abundance for farmers.

Below is a video at one of the contract signing events with farmers in Riachão do Bacamarte, a town close to Ingá.

The project expands the cultivation of colored cotton and white cotton, all with international organic product certification.

Colored cotton was developed by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation – Embrapa. Cotton is born colored without the use of additives or dyes. Its production without irrigation and without the use of additives and dyes and without dyeing in the final product guarantees savings of 87.5% of water, when compared to a similar finished product. The cultivation has technical support from the Research, Rural Extension and Land Regularization Company – Empaer.

Natural Cotton Color is part of the Management Committee of the Local Productive Arrangement of Colored Cotton Confections and Artifacts in the State of Paraíba. Francisca Vieira is president of ABRIMOS – Brazilian Association of Industry, Commerce, Services and Education for Sustainable Fashion.