Low-impact living by Jane Powers
Conventional cotton crops consume 25 per cent of the world's pesticides and 10 per cent of its herbicides, yet they occupy only 3 or 4 per cent of agricultural land. These are the most frequently quoted statistics in favour of switching to organic cotton, but they are gobsmacking enough to bear repetition. And I've just learned the further unsavoury fact that the cotton in the T-shirt I am wearing required 150g of fertiliser and other chemicals to produce. Imagine: a ball of chemicals the size of a large apple hanging out of your otherwise snug top.
Some of the chemicals used in poorer countries are now banned in Europe. And although cotton is not designated an edible crop, by-products - cotton-seed oil and waste materials processed into animal feed - end up in the human food chain.
Cotton may be sprayed numerous times before harvest. Along with insects, earthworms are casualties. They rise to the soil's surface to die, where they are plucked by birds. These in turn are killed, and are eaten by larger birds, and mammals and snakes - with fatal consequences. Livestock may also be affected, and the effects on human health can be disastrous. Where farmers are barely eking out an existence - cotton subsidies in the US have led to artificially low market prices worldwide - there is much scope for poisoning besides contamination from handling and spraying. Food crops are unsafely grown with cotton, and pesticide containers are reused for drinking water and food.
Twenty per cent of the world's cotton is genetically modified. One kind, inserted with the Bacillus thuringiensis gene, is toxic to bollworms. But other pests are taking their place, so that crops have to be sprayed up to 20 times during the growing season, according to a Cornell University study.
Organically grown cotton relies on natural methods such as the rotation of crops, the physical removal of weeds, the addition of organic matter to the soil and the use of beneficial insects to control pests. Yields are usually not as high as for the conventional crop, but farmers are paid a premium and have lower costs, so they have higher net incomes. Other benefits include freedom from debt, better health and food uncontaminated by pesticide residue. (Organic-cotton bed linen, towels and clothing are available from www.ecoshop.ie.)
Yes, organic cotton products may be more expensive for consumers, but perhaps it's better that we, rather than small cotton farmers, pay the price.