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2002 Beltwide
Presentation
Organic Cotton: Production and Marketing
Trends in the U.S. and Globally
The Sustainable Cotton Project has launched
a "Cleaner Cotton Campaign,"
which includes an effort to make university bookstores aware
of organic cotton. Recent Chico State graduate Katherine
Polan is contacting CSU bookstores in hopes of persuading
them to sell collegiate apparel made of organic cotton.
So far, Chico State and Humboldt State are selling organic
T-shirts manufactured by Patagonia.
SF State hasn't been approached by Polan yet, but the goal
is to have universities nationwide move into organic cotton
apparel.
Driving I-5 between San Francisco and Los
Angeles basically means driving through the heart of San
Joaquin Valley. Fields stretch in every direction,
giving an impression of driving through nothingness. Except
for the food and gas stops that appear in rythmic intervals,
there's only space. Space that seems to contain nothing,
but in reality contains the most productive agricultural
region in the world, and the second largest cotton producing
area in the nation (only Texas produces more cotton).
Only a few workers are out in the cotton fields
in late November. They're preparing for winter, and the
low activity level gives passers-by a feeling of peace and
harmony. It fits well with cotton's image as apure fabric
that protects our bodies with a soft layer of comfort. Marketed
as "The Fabric of our Lives"
on television by Cotton Incorporated, an industry group
of cotton growers and importers, cotton has a firm foothold
in the average consumer's mind as the obvious choice of
fabric. But that average consumer has little idea that while
cotton farming only uses between three and five percent
of the world's farmland, it consumes 25 percent of the chemical
pesticides and fertilizers.
Poisonous Comfort
Conventional cotton farming involves use of synthetic chemicals
that seriously harm the environment, farm communities and
workers. Just take a look at your own T-shirt. As are millions
of others around the state and country (and world) you're
probably wearing one, and it's proably soft and comfortable
to wear. However, it takes about nine ounces of cotton to
make one T-shirt, and to make these nine ounces, an average
of 17 teaspoons of synthetic fertilizers
are used, plus three-fourths of a teaspoon of active ingredients
like pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and defoliants.
These pesticides are classified among the most toxic by
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Only 40 percent of the cotton plant is comprised
of fiber. The rest is seed, which is used to feed dairy
and beef cattle, and is an ingredient in cookies, potato
chips and prepared foods. Often up to 10 percent of a cow's
diet is untreated cottonseed and gin trash (separated from
the fiber and seed at the gin), which is often defoliated
with organophosphate nerve poisons like DEF,
Folex, paraquat and bomb-making materials like sodium
chlorate.
"I get very ill in the spring. I experience
respiratory problems, while many others around here get
bad headaches. It's especially bad for the allergics,"
Sandy Sanders says. She has spent the last 26 years living
and farming with her husband Roger on their farm on the
outskirts of Bakersfield. "They
couldn't use the water at a school on the north side
of Bakersfield not long ago, and the kids had to bring bottled
water. The water was too contaminated."
According to SNF, a Swedish environmental
organization, the textile industry produces about 40 billion
pounds of textiles annually, and cotton alone accounts for
half of the world's consumption of textile fibers. This
means a lot of spraying, and with it both foreseen and unforeseen
damages. "If cotton were a crop
that we ate instead of one that we wore, the EPA
and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) wouldn't allow
us to spray it with some of the things we use," said
Jerry Williams, a government agriculture expert in Arkansas,
in a 1991 New Yorker article. What sane consumers probably
would like to know is that approximately two-thirds of a
cotton crop winds up in the food we eat, even though cotton
uses chemicals that have been banned for food crops.
California has over a million acres of irrigated
cotton cropland, and pesticide use in the state has increased
over the past 10 years. The Sustainable
Cotton Project, started and led by Will
Allen, is located in Oroville on the northern end
of California's Central Valley, and is trying to make consumers,
farmers and clothing companies aware of an eco-friendly
alternative to conventional cotton farming: organically
grown cotton, which is grown without the use of synthetic
chemical fertilizers, pesticides or defoliants. Alook at
the facts SCP has gathered on conventional cotton is staggering,
prompting the question: Why is cotton forgotten when public
awareness of the advantages of organic food is growing?
In 1995, more than 14
pounds of pesticides were sprayed on every acre of cotton
fields in California, according to SCP. Of the pesticides
used, five of the top nine are cancer-causing chemicals
(cyanazine, dicofol, naled, propargite, and trifluralin),
and all the top nine pesticides used are labeled by EPA
as Category I or II materials, which are the most toxic
classifications. Forty-six percent of all U.S. counties
contain groundwater susceptible to contamination from agricultural
pesticides and fertilizers, and 68
pesticides have been found in drinking wells in California
since 1982. This number becomes more worrisome when, according
to a report from 1994 by Environmental Working Group/Physicians
for Social Responsibility, 90 percent of municipal water
treatment facilities lack equipment to remove carcinogenic
herbicides.
Today, almost 1,000 insects and weed species
have developed resistance to chemical control. The increased
resistance caused by the intensive use of chemicals is threatening
to decrease crops and eventually the production of food,
according to World Watch Institute.
Organic Solution
"Of course the ideal would be to use no pesticides,"
says Larry Godfrey, an entomologist. He points out that
California isn't the worst state when it comes to pesticide
use. "In the rest of the country they apply pesticides
10 to 15 times a season, while it's down to four times a
season in California," he says. Unfortunately for farmers
wanting to grow cotton organically, Godfrey says "the
market isn't there."
"The sale of organic
cotton has gone down in California," Lynda Grose
says. The British designer and researcher co-founded Esprit's
Ecollection division in 1990, and has since then been actively
invovled in finding more environmentally responsibl eclothing
and lifestyle products. She lives in San Francisco and is
working with Allen and SCP to get more companies into organic
cotton. "Organic cotton is just as good as conventional
cotton, she says. "The only difference is the chemicals.
"The organic cotton market reached its
maximum in 1994". Then the acreage plummeted in '95.
Since then, farmers will not change to organic unless they
have a market." The crash in the organic cotton market
in 1995 was caused by a lack of consumer demand for 100
percent organic cotton clothing. Many farmers were left
with the high costs, but nowhere to sell their fiber. At
its peak, there were approximately 40,000 acres dedicated
to organic cotton in the United States. Today it's about
8,000, and Turkey has taken the lead as the biggest producer
of organic cotton. The number won't increase until consumers
and companies create a market for organic cotton, as they
have done with organic food. Some companies, like Patagonia
and Nike, are doing something about the situation. "Levi's
tried using organic cotton, but it didn't work out, and
today they're doing nothing," Grose says. "Patagonia
uses 100 percent organic cotton in all their cotton
wear, and Nike uses a blend with three
percent, but are working on increasing it to 5.8
percent." And here lies some of SCP's strategy: They're
not trying to change companies into using 100 percent organic
immediately, but rather start using blends of organic and
conventional cotton like Nike.
Ironically, companies the size of Nike create
a dilemma that will take a lot of cooperation between farmers
and companies and between the companies themselves. Were
Nike to convert to 100 percent organic fiber rather than
blending, it would "devour the existing supply of organic
cotton in short order." For the farmers, especially
in places like California, the problem leans more in direction
of "who will buy our organic cotton?" It's no
secret that Nike produces many of its products in Third
World countries where labor is cheap and restrictions and
taxes are easier to manipulate. "Companies like Nike
and Patagonia buy cotton close to where they produce it.
Nike buys a lot in China, and Patagonia mainly in Turkey,"
Grose says. "We literally had
to beg on our knees to sell our crop this year,"
Sanders says as she sits in the living room of her family's
house at the southern end of San Joaquin Valley. The Sanders
have grown vegetables organically since 1987, and started
growing organic cotton in 1991. They grew about 400 acres
of organic cotton this last season, but Sanders is worried
about their future as organic cotton farmers. "Patagonia
and other companies put out ads asking consumers to buy
organic and support organic farmers and the environment.
It's misleading. Most of them buy their cotton off-shore,"
Sanders explain. "Patagonia bought some of ours this
year though, but it was very hard to make them buy it. They
should support organic farmers in the U.S. I would think
they have an obligation of some sorts to buy U.S. organic."
Thinking about their future as organic cotton
famers, Sanders says that "When we married 24 years
ago, Roger was growing 7,000 acres of cotton. Next year,
that number may be zero." She makes the zero soundless
as she forms the number with her thumb and forefinger. "We're
the only ones who grow organically around here. There's
a couple of farmers further north though," Sanders
says. "But more and more people
are getting interested. There's a young farmer nearby,
he's probably in his late twenties, and he's very enthusiastic.
He's even talking about suing the chemical companies for
all the money he has spent on chemicals that don't do anything
good."
Surrounding the Sanders' farm lie fields as far as the eye
can see. The silence is almost total on an early afternoon
in late November. Even the young, energetic dog belonging
to one of their workers that plays in the yard in front
of the house keeps its barks to a minimum. "Cotton
is a summer crop," Sanders explains, so back when we
were growing cotton by conventional methods, the workers
had to be dressed in safety equipment. It's hard getting
the guys to wear masks and other protective gear in 105
to 107 degrees."
This summer they had seven to eight workers
on their big field, which lies 25 miles southwest of Bakersfield
at the edge of the Buena Vista Lake bed. Organic growing
is more labor intensive, often requiring hand labor in place
of chemical-oriented solutions. The concept is that vigorous
plants resist insects, weeds and diseases better than those
under stress due to repeated chemical applications. Since
cotton has a huge appetite for nitrogen, organic farmers
add nitrogen to the soil by growing cover crops, such as
vetch and fava beans. Chicken manure is also applied.
Still, as long as their neighbors farm by conventional methods,
the risks caused by chemicals are ever-present, both for
the workers and their families. Farm workers have the highest
rate of chemical-related illnesses of any occupational group
in the United States, with approximately 300,000 pesticide-related
illnesses each year. According to SCP, 10,400 people in
the United States die each year from cancer related to pesticides.
The conditions in other countries are even worse, due to
a lack of restrictions and enforcement. The World Health
Organization estimates that 25 million
farmers and farmworkers are poisoned by chemicals every
year in the world (48 per minute), and that at least
200,000 die. Ninety-nine percent of these deaths occur in
developing countries in the Southern Hemisphere.
Following the Money
Sitting quietly in the background are huge multi-national
corporations like Monsanto
and Aventus. The value of the
annual sales of chemicals used in farming is over $2.4 billion,
according to Pesticide Action Network.
An article in National Geographic revealed that 600,000
tons of chemicals are applied annually to cotton fields
in the United States, with a value of $500 million.
Beginning at the end of World War II, chemicals
and technologies that had been developed for warfare were
focused on the farm. With the help of aggressive marketing,
companies transformed the farm into a "battleground,"
where it was necessary for farmers to use chemicals in order
to secure their crops. Allen from SCP and Ron
Kroese from the Center for
Appropriate Technology have documented the history
of pesticide advertisements in U.S. farm journals, and the
results show a business not too concerned with truth. The
headline for a 1947 advertisement reads: "DDT
is Good For Me!"
Walking hand in hand with the chemical companies
are banks and other lenders who view organic cotton farming
as a high-risk investment. Since most farmers are renters,
they often begin the season in debt. And with decreasing
cotton prices, chances of bad weather or pest infestations,
farmers are often required to have
a chemical spray program in order to secure a loan.
The government fulfills its part by subsidizing conventional
cotton farmers.
The latest surprise from the chemical companies
is genetically modified cotton, which, according to Nov.
2000 article in The Saigon Times Magazine, could make up
50 percent of the world's crop in five to seven years. Critics
of GM cotton call it "Frankenstein
fiber," and point out that it has been rushed
to market without adequate testing of its long-term effects
on the environment and health. There are also worries that
GM cotton might lead to more chemical use.
One example is Monsanto's
Bt cotton, which enables plants to produce their
own insect-killing toxins. Care What
You Wear, a publication of an environmental organization
called Mothers & Others, states: "A recent study
revealed that pollen from genetically modified Bt corn can
harm and even kill non-pest species, such as the monarch
butterfly."
"There's more pressure on farmers to
use genetically modified seeds," Sanders says. "Farmers
that use it have a great first year. The second can also
be great, but by the third year they have to spray and spray,
because they don't rotate their crop."
Some 50 miles north of the Sanders farm lies
evidence of the damage caused by the use of chemicals. Right
by the Lost Hill exit at I-5, almost visible from the highway,
the Twisselman Settlement Pond
stretches out between narrow dirt roads. A green substance
covers the water, giving the place a feeling of lifelessness.
Some kind of fish leaps a couple of times, but otherwise
there's not much sign of anything alive.
As a result of farming based on irrigation
and pesticide use, water from nearby fields run into the
pond, giving it its unusual color. But the lack of a nice
view isn't the biggest problem at either the Twisselman
Pond or any of the similar ponds spread around San Joaquin
Valley. According to SCP, birds are
experiencing birth defects in record numbers in the
Tulare Lake Drainage District, and a 1997 article in Audubon
Magazine estimated that at least 67 million birds are
killed by pesticides in the United States every year.
This, and other kinds of destruction, can
be prevented with organic cotton farming. Another alternative
is industrial hemp, which can be grown without chemicals,
and doesn't deplete the soil. Companies like Manastash and
Hemp Town Clothing make clothes and other accessories that
look and feel like cotton. However, industrial hemp has
been illegal to grow in the United States since the early
1950s, so production companies have to import it into the
United States, mainly from Canada. By now, over "30
countries are developing a hemp industry to meet international
fiber demands," according to the North American Industrial
Hemp Council.
Back in San Francisco, stores and customers
are getting ready for the big holiday season. The average
U.S. consumer spends approximately $1,500 on clothes each
year according to the May 1999 Harper's Index. If a small
fraction of it went towards buying something made of organic
cotton, like a T-Shirt or maybe a pair of jeans, farmers
like the Sanders would finally find a market for their crop.
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