Insights into Organic cotton

We live in a world where we consume fruits and vegetables sprayed with chemicals. It is hard reminding myself , to eat organic food With that as the state, getting myself to go for organic cotton products is even more challenging.”Should we really bother about a percentage of insecticides on our T-shirt” are questions that pop up .Not easy and I am not suggesting any easy way out of this. I want to challenge myself and whomever I can, to stop looking the other way when it doesn’t feel right .There are only two ways, one easy comfortable way is to stay ignorant, the other is to be conscious & act accordingly. My quest is to try and create awareness on the world's 2nd most polluting industry “The Fashion Industry”. I will restrict myself to cotton because it’s the most used natural fiber in India and the world

There are 2 aspects of organic cotton a) Use of non-toxic pesticides and non-synthetic fertilizers b) Cotton grown from Non-Genetically modified cotton (popularly known as non-BT-Cotton)

a) Non-Toxic chemicals – Conventional Cotton crop is the world’s most chemical intensive crop. Grown on 2.5% of the world’s agricultural land, cotton consumes a staggering 16% of all the insecticides sold worldwide.

Organic cotton overcomes this by Crop rotation/mixed cultivation and by promotion of its natural enemies . By not using chemicals , it encourages natural enemies of cotton pests such as birds, ladybirds, beetles, spiders, parasitic wasps, bugs and ants. They help the farmer keep pest attacks at tolerable levels.

b) Non Genetically modified cotton – To understand what is non-GM , needs to dive in to what the GM crop does for cotton and its intended purpose .The BT-cotton (BT-Bacillus thuringiensis) produces a chemical which is supposedly harmful only to a small fraction of insects mainly boll-worms .

Imagine a type of poison which is expected to affect only one set of insects .The claim was,since the plant itself has an anti-insect ability ,farmers would have to use less or no pesticide there by saving investments in insecticide/pesticide .This would in turn boost the production of cotton per hectare.

Non-gm cotton comprises of seeds from nature where each farmer chooses his seeds based on the soil and the local climatic conditions.The farmer decides on the cotton species which is best for him.

Some effects of GM cotton

Initially minor positive effects were reported. Farmers, bought the seeds on a premium and used less of insecticide .Over time, pests/insects returned with a vengeance .The farmer now, has to pay for seeds, which he used to harvest on his own ,now follows up spending heavily on insecticide as well. Think of it as an antibiotic, which has a partial effect on a bacterial infection and the side effect killing all the good gut bacteria.

Will share some of the deep impacts, conventional cotton has on our farmer in the next blog “Farmer versus cotton”.

Action

Time to go beyond the label .Time to be aware .Time to at least start reading the tags that are mentioned in our clothes.