Cotton and Environmental Issues

by Allene Edwards

   Cotton is native to tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world and has been cultivated, spun into thread, and woven into cloth for thousands of years. The earliest cultivation known was 7,000 to 8,000 years ago in Mexico.
   Cotton fibers are used to make thread, which is woven into cloth. Cotton seeds are crushed and squeezed for oil, which is found in a variety of processed foods, while husks and field refuse is ground for animal feed.

   We live in an age when marketing campaigns magically engrave slogans directly into our gray matter. Who doesn’t know cotton is “The Fabric of Our Lives”? But this is not the first marketing phrase bandied about for the cotton industry. The 19th century equivalent “King Cotton” was used by Southern politicians and authors during the Civil War era to remind the world of Southern cotton production and its importance.
   The Industrial Revolution brought the cotton gin and textile factories into play. Cotton production soared. By the time of the Civil War, cotton represented 60% of the U.S. exports, which led the South to believe that by withholding cotton exports it could manipulate Europe into siding with the Confederacy. The strategy failed. Lincoln’s blockades further crippled the South, leaving India, Egypt, and others to meet the European demand for cotton.

Fair Trade

   Today the United States remains the largest exporter of raw cotton, followed by India, Uzbekistan, Brazil, and Australia, though China and India are the largest producers. U.S. cotton farmers are heavily subsidized, which makes it difficult for farmers in third world countries to compete on the global market.

   Much of cotton growing and harvesting in industrialized nations is now mechanized. In developing countries, such as Uzbekistan, formerly a part of the Soviet Union, cotton is still picked by hand. The Environmental Justice Foundation reveals that the Uzbekistan dictatorship shuts down schools and sends tens of thousands of students and their teachers into the fields for several weeks each year to pick the cotton crops with little or no compensation. The government appropriates most of the earnings, paying farmers a third or less of the crop’s value.

GMO Cotton

   GMO (Genetically Modified Organism), GM (Genetically Modified), and BT (Bio Tech) are all terms used to describe the same thing—genetically modified plants. Cotton is one of the premier GMO crops, utilizing genetic engineering to produce insect resistant and herbicide resistant plants.
   Sixty-five percent of cotton production ends up in the human food chain, either through cottonseed oil or through meat and dairy from animals fed cotton seed hulls and ground up plants. GMO foods are not labeled. Consumers cannot avoid eating GMO foods unless all meat and dairy they consume is organic and all of the processed foods they eat are 100% organic.

Issue 5 | April/May 2010

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   GMO cotton has earned a bad reputation with environmentalists for a variety of reasons starting with the lack of empirical research into the deleterious effects it may have on our ecology and our food supply. GMO cotton seed hulls are crushed and fed to cattle and other livestock causing questions to be raised as to whether prions, the proteins causing mad cow’s disease, might originate from such food sources.
   Many critics of GMO foods are concerned because thorough, responsible, independent testing on GMO foods has never been done. Testing has been left to the corporations that created and sell GMO seeds. The agencies charged with protecting our food supply have rubber stamped GMO foods as GRAS or Generally Recognized as Safe, allowing the disregard for testing, leading credence to the belief that profit-driven corruption is running rampant with no regard for public health and safety.

Organic Cotton

   The Organic Trade Association labels conventionally-grown cotton as the world’s dirtiest crop due to its rank as the number one crop for use of pesticides and herbicides. “Cotton covers 2.5% of the world's cultivated land yet uses 16% of the world's insecticides, more than any other single major crop.”
   Aldicarb is the insecticide most poisonous to man; just one drop absorbed through the skin can cause death. Yet it is the second best selling insecticide used in cotton production. It is used in 25 countries, including the U.S., where 16 states have reported finding it in their groundwater. Many of the pesticides used for cotton production are known carcinogens.
   Petroleum based fertilizers pollute groundwater and run off into streams and lakes.
   Organic cotton is not genetically engineered. It is grown with natural fertilizers—manure and compost—and with minimal use of chemicals.

Issue 5 | April/May 2010

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pg 10

This practice helps protect the land itself, the growers, the processors, and the food chain.

We Can Make a Difference

   Once again we must realize that we have the power to affect change. Our buying habits rule the economy. Ignore the marketing slogans, fancy signs, and slick promotions. Buy organic.

King Cotton and Cotton, Wikipedia

Cotton in Uzbekistan, Environmental Justice Foundation

Cotton and the Environment, Organic Trade Association

Allene Edwards is a contributing writer and the editor for both Green Lifestyle Magazine and Organic Lifestyle Magazine. Growing up in the 60s, Allene was considered a hippie; she never lost her concern for the environment.