Cadena Textil Justa y Solidaria

As a fair trade organization, Otro Mercado's primary goal is to coordinate small scale Argentinian micro-enterprises that promote fair trade practices, teach these enterprises how to run their businesses more efficiently, and help them sell their product on the global market at competitive prices. Right now, the strongest of these projects is the Cadena Textil Justa y Solidaria, or fairness and solidarity textile chain, which produces a line of classic T-shirts, currently selling in Argentina and Italy. We hope this chain and others will help prove that fair trade producers can manufacture large volumes of competitive products, like T-shirts, and erase the stereotypical notion that fair trade producers can only make things like artisanal crafts and organic granola.

The interesting thing about Cadena Textil is that every step of production is run by fair trade micro-enterprises, beginning with cotton farms in rural northern Argentina, and three steps later resulting in ironed, packaged T-shirts ready to wear on two continents. Essentially, every part of the manufacturing process is a result of fair trade commerce, it's really a win-win situation--producers get the payment they deserve for hard, honest work and you get a high quality T-shirt at a low price.

Production begins in the rural northern Argentinian province of Chaco. Here, a group of indigenous families has formed Union Campesina, a facility that produces large volumes of raw cotton, the primary material of our T's.

Next, the cotton is shipped south, to Cooperativa Textiles Pigue in the province of Buenos Aires, where it is woven into fabric, dyed one of eight colors, and cut to fit size. Interestingly enough, Cooperativa Textiles Pigue is a factory that was acquired, and is now managed, by its workers in a take-over during the recent Argentine economic crisis.

After the appropriate steps are taken in at Pigue, the material is shipped to La Matanza, just outside the city of Buenos Aires, where they are tailored and altered at Cooperativa La Juanita, which also hosts a community center and kindergarten for the local community, and then ironed, packaged, and made ready to wear in Cooperativa Purpore, also in La Matanza.

Each link, if not part of the chain, would not be able to produce to the effect it does today. As a part of this textile chain, organizations are able to share problems and experiences, and have been able to realize the possibility of arranging their production into a common project. Today, the finished product of Cadena Textil Justo y Solidaria is experiencing excellent sales both in and around the La Plata area, as well in the chain of stores run by CTM Altromercato, a fair trade consortium in Italy. In the near future, we hope to expand sales to additional stores in Europe and North America.

The project is also supported by CTM Altromercato in Italy and Altromercato Argentina for the integration of production into the local and international fair trade circuit.