29. Pen down the journey of a cotton shirt from field to factor.
Answers
A Cotton Farmer in Kurnool: The First Step
Small farmers grow cotton in their field and during harvesting, they collect the pure white cotton balls. These are then taken to the local traders from whom the farmers had borrowed money to buy fertilizers, seeds etc to cultivate their lands.
Even if the market prices are high, the traders pay a minimum price to the farmers. The farmers are thus out of their debt, knowing little that they could be in a much better position.
The Cloth Market of Erode: The Second Step
Once the cotton balls are sold, the traders engage other workers to convert the balls into cotton yarns. There is a bi-weekly market in Erode, Tamil Nadu that is one of the biggest markets for cloth in the world. A lot of weavers from all over the country come here to sell and understand what type of cloth needs to be done.
In the next step, the weavers supply the cloth to the merchants in return for the yarn from them. This way, the money of the weavers is saved as they don’t have to buy any yarn. However, as matter of fact, they are at huge losses as they are unaware of the prices of the clothes and are paid very less compared to what they deserve.
The Garment Exporting Factory near Delhi: The Third Step
The merchants send the procured cloth to various garment export centers in Delhi. The garments factory manufactures shirts that are sold to the chain of businesses from the US and Europe. These companies set various standards of quality and time. Most of the garment centers, under pressure, try to extract the maximum work from the workers at minimum wages.