Voluntary certification will open more markets for Brazilian cotton, says minister

The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa), Marcos Montes, participated this Tuesday (16/08) in the opening of the 13th edition of the Brazilian Cotton Congress, in Salvador.

At the event, Montes highlighted the advancement of the voluntary certification program within the cotton sector. Voluntary certification allows, through the issuance of an official certificate of conformity, the addition of value to Brazilian products on the foreign market. Within the country, voluntary certification allows the production sector to highlight the quality characteristics of products, providing more information to the consumer.

In the 2021/2022 harvest, Mapa and the Brazilian Association of Cotton Producers (Abrapa) developed a pilot project to certify the official conformity of Brazilian cotton, which involved training inspectors from cotton processing units, checking press knives, use of tamper-evident seals on cotton suitcases and standardization in the reception of laboratory samples.

Mapa granted recognition to the first processing units, a laboratory and a reference center.

“With this, it will be possible to issue the first Official Certificates of Conformity, the documents that will guarantee qualified access especially to the Asian market, promoting the appreciation of the product”, highlighted the minister.

In recent years, Brazil appears among the world's five largest cotton producers, along with China, India, the USA and Pakistan. The goal is to make the country the world's largest fiber exporter by 2030, according to Abrapa.