A Live Green, Live Smart™ Briefing 
Printer-friendly version
Nothing beats the comfortable feeling of a good, worn cotton shirt or an old pair of jeans. For many, cotton evokes a friendly, pure and healthy sense beyond the best efforts of the most skillfully crafted synthetics: polyester, acrylic, and microfibers just don't feel as - well, they don't feel natural.
But the realities of the cotton industry are far removed from the benign vision of natural bliss that many of us cherish. Cotton farming is a massive, worldwide industry. Cotton accounts for the use of five percent of the world's farmland, and half of the world's textile production and sales. In the United States, more than 40 billion pounds of cotton are harvested annually, creating a revenue of over $50 billion, greater than any other domestically grown field crop. And cotton isn't just in our clothing - it's in our sheets and towels, our furniture, it's residue is fed to livestock, and, as cottonseed oil, it's found in many of the foods humans regularly eat.
Historically, cotton farming has been labor intensive; cotton crops still require exceptional input from people, machinery, and chemicals. Worldwide, cotton growing uses a disproportionate quantity of chemicals in its production: 25 percent of global agricultural insecticide usage, and 10 percent of herbicide usage is devoted to cotton fields. This averages out to about one pound of chemicals applied to cropland for every three pounds of cotton. Together, the shirt and those jeans you love so much weigh about three or four pounds - at least a whole pound of field chemicals has been used to grow the fiber in them. And the chemicals don't hang around the plants they're applied to: about 90 percent of the pesticides and herbicides applied to cotton crops wash into soil, ground water, and lakes, streams, and rivers.
Additional chemicals are used on cotton once it leaves the field, to spin, weave, and dye the cotton fabrics we wear. Cotton plants themselves have become one of the world's most genetically engineered crops - about 50 percent of American-grown cotton is genetically modified.
In response to consumer demand and financial pressures of conventional cotton farming, some farmers are moving away from conventional cotton farming strategies toward the growing field of organic cotton. Like organic food farms, organic cotton farmers treat their farms not as factories needing protection from the environment, but rather as living organisms interacting with the environment. They use crop rotations to keep the soil hardy and nutrient-rich. They weed and hoe the soil by hand, and use chemical-free solutions to keep away bugs and other pests. Organic cotton farms use less water than conventional farms, and they use no chemicals or genetically modified plant types.
Generally the planting and harvest takes more time, knowledge and skill than conventional growing. Acreage yields are high but still do not meet conventional yields. Farmers and buyers report, though, that the quality of organic cotton meets or exceeds that of conventional cotton. As of now, products manufactured from organic cotton cost more than those made from conventionally grown cotton. But as organic cotton farming becomes more widespread and organic cotton fiber more available, the price will continue to drop to meet conventional cotton prices.
In recent years the market for organic cotton has boomed in response to consumer demand. Organic cotton now accounts for 95 percent of the organic fabric market (the other five percent made up of fiber from soy, hemp, bamboo, etc.) In 2005, 22 countries produced 20 million pounds of organic cotton. According to the Organic Exchange, a nonprofit trade association, between 2001 and 2005 the worldwide market grew from $245 million to $583 million. Still, the organic cotton market is equal to just one percent of the conventional cotton market. By 2008, the Organic Exchange expects the global market for organic cotton to be $2.6 billion.
In 1996 Patagonia became one of the first clothing/outerwear companies to switch their entire line of cotton clothing to 100 percent organic. Many corporations, big and small, are following suit. The biggest buyers of organic cotton may surprise you: Nike is number one, Patagonia is number two, and Wal-Mart comes in at number five. Nike says 52 percent of its product line contains at least some amount of organic cotton, anywhere from 3 percent to 100 percent. Three percent of a sneaker may not sound like much organic cotton, but it represents a commitment to the world's organic cotton farmers and their efforts - and many of those farmers are in developing countries: Turkey is the single largest grower of organic cotton, producing 40 percent of the organic cotton yield; India produces 25 percent; the US and China each produce around 7 percent.
Because the number of people who request organic cotton products is growing, many companies see it as a value-added product - a product people are willing to pay extra for. Besides the environmental benefits, there is a tangible benefit for people allergic to the chemical residues in the conventionally grown fiber. And, of course, against the skin it feels pure, healthy, natural - the way cotton should.
The more people buy organic cotton the lower the price becomes, with the end result being that more farmers and buyers are convinced to switch. You can do your part by researching and buying from companies that support organic cotton farmers, and asking that your favorite retailers make the switch to organic if they have not yet done so.
Written for Live Green, Live Smart by Jack Hays (jack@jacksonhays.com)