January 05, 2017 | Meet the Journalist
Donate NowWhy are shirts, jeans, and countless other cotton items we use every day so strikingly cheap? What is the secret? The answer is simple. When Paul Timbi Kobassare, a farmer in Burkina Faso, divides the income he gets from cultivating cotton by the number of days in a year, it comes to a bit more than one dollar per day. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, Anowara’s workday in the garment industry is at least 10 hours long. In a month, she earns $89.