Setting the Groundwork for Fair Trade in Mongolia’s Cashmere Sector

What does fair trade look like in Mongolia’s cashmere sector and how can processors and herders shape it together? The STeP EcoLab Mongolia 2 project has initiated a multi-year process to answer exactly this question.

To kick things off, project team travelled to Ulaanbaatar to launch a structured dialogue that will, over the coming years, bring together processors, herders, cooperatives, and policymakers to jointly define what “fair trade” should mean in the Mongolian context.

The first milestone was a full-day workshop with representatives from cashmere processing companies—covering the entire value chain from de-hairing to garment manufacturing. Together, participants explored how fair trade principles could strengthen supply chain relationships, improve raw material quality, and open doors to sustainable markets.

A shared vision emerged: fairer cooperation along the value chain could support herders in stabilising their income while reducing herd sizes, contributing directly to Mongolia’s urgent pastureland and overgrazing challenges. These insights build on the project’s broader mission to create economically viable and environmentally responsible pathways for the sector.

As part of the visit, Dr. Britta Holzberg and Pawel Zylka from the CSCP together with our partners from the Agronomes & Vétérinaires Sans Frontiers (AVSF) visited several processing factories in and around Ulaanbaatar.

Seeing the production processes firsthand helped deepen the understanding of the industry’s pressures, ranging from quality fluctuations to global competition. It also underscored a key finding: processors are highly motivated to engage in sustainability and fair trade discussions, recognising them as strategic necessities rather than optional add-ons.

The next phase will turn the focus toward herders and cooperatives. To prepare, the CSCP has conducted two “train-the-trainer” workshops with local partners, enabling them to run three regional workshops with herders between December 2025 and January 2026. These workshops will introduce the same core concepts but explore them from the perspective of primary producers—ensuring that their needs and realities shape the emerging fair trade model.

In 2026, STeP EcoLab Mongolia II will bring selected herders, cooperatives, processors, and policymakers together in a co-creation process to refine stakeholder inputs into a shared set of fair trade practices tailored to Mongolia’s cashmere sector.

Finally, in 2027, all relevant national stakeholders will be invited to a Fair Trade Dialogue, an industry-wide workshop where Mongolia’s first co-created fair trade reference practices will be discussed, aligned, and jointly agreed.

For further questions, please contact Pawel Zylka.