Artistic Milliners gives organic cotton update
Karachi-based denim producer Artistic Milliners (AM) has provided more details regarding its Milliner Organic initiative, specifically its recent harvest of certified in-conversion cotton from the Kohlu district of Balochistan, Pakistan, the first of its kind to be grown in the locality.
Denim brand Jack & Jones, owned by Danish fashion group Bestseller, is set to make roughly 200,000 pairs of jeans from the cotton as part of its December 2022 collection.
“As I said before, this will be a game-changer for the Pakistani cotton industry,” commented AM chief executive, Omer Ahmed. We are here to bridge the gap between organic cotton supply and demand for our long-standing brand partner Bestseller.”
Following issues with the supply of organic cotton seeds in the project's early stages, AM subsequently worked alongside World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to procure and distribute 9,500 bags of non-genetically modified seeds, valued at almost $150,000 or 30 million Pakistani rupees, among Kohlu’s 2,000 participating farmers for free.
The manufacturer is currently working to end the role of intermediaries to ensure that farmers get a fairer share of the profits from their cotton harvest, it said. Going further, AM has also established various enhancement projects in the local area, ranging from installing solar-powered water tube wells to implementing artificial intelligence-powered satellite farming technologies, which employ remote sensing data to support healthy crop cultivation.
WWF, meanwhile, has supplied project farmers with an automated organic pesticide maker, which can generate five litres of concentrated organic pesticide from 40 kilograms of a "plant-based substance" in one hour.
Image: Artistic Milliners.
