Request for Proposals Decent work baseline research in cotton cultivation in India

Request for Proposals: Decent work baseline research in cotton cultivation in India

Applications Deadline: 10th August 2025

Location: India

Start Date: 29th August 2025

End Date: 27th February 2026

Description

Better Cotton is the world’s largest cotton sustainability programme. Our mission: to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment. In difficult times, we are meeting the challenge head on. Through our network of field-level partners we have provided training on more sustainable farming practices to more than 2.9 million cotton farmers in 26 countries. More than a fifth of the world’s cotton is now grown under the Better Cotton Standard and our membership network includes more than 2,400 members.

Context

Cotton production plays a vital role in rural livelihoods across India, particularly where alternative income sources are limited. The sector largely comprises smallholder farmers, with labour often shared among household members. The contribution made by females may be undervalued or unrecognised, limiting their access to income and decision-making. At the same time, children may become involved in hazardous tasks, especially when labour demand peaks.

Hired labour is common but typically informal, associated with low pay, long hours, hazardous working conditions, and limited access to worker protections or social security—factors that reduce resilience and deepen vulnerability.

Sharecropping practices in some regions further entrench inequality. Sharecroppers are expected to repay advances through harvest shares. These informal arrangements, when coupled with poor yields or volatile prices, can trap households in debt cycles and increase the risk of debt bondage.

The sector also depends heavily on seasonal migrant workers, many of them female, recruited informally and lacking bargaining power or access to grievance mechanisms—exposing them to risks of a range of labour rights violations, including forced labour.

Climate change is compounding these challenges. Irregular rainfall, droughts, and other climate shocks are reducing agricultural stability, driving stress migration, and leaving workers more exposed to exploitative conditions.

Data Quality and Ethics

Collecting data from workers on cotton farms can pose ethical and logistical challenges. Engaging workers during their working hours may result in lost income or productivity, while collecting data outside of working hours can inadvertently exclude those with household responsibilities— particularly female farmers—thus introducing gender bias into the data.

Better Cotton is open to respondent remuneration where appropriate, though we recognize this raises further considerations, such as managing expectations about future benefits and ensuring that participation remains truly voluntary.

Proposals should reflect a worker-centred and ethically sound approach to data collection that respects participants’ time, dignity, and rights. Experience with rights-based or participatory research approaches will be viewed favourably.

We thank all applicants for their interest; however only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

Better Cotton is committed to good practice and transparency in the management of natural, human and financial resources. All applications will be reviewed under the principles and subject to Better Cotton’s policies on equal opportunity, non-discrimination, anti-bribery & corruption and conflict of interest.