Posts get shared on Facebook now and then talking about how you shouldn’t use cotton shopping bags, or maybe we need to really up our investments in hemp research or whatever because cotton is “a water intensive crop.” I usually scratch my head a bit because as far as I know, cotton is a plant that like hot, dry weather (like me!). It does better in near desert conditions than most plants and lots of cotton is grown with whatever rain falls on the farms growing it. With the most recent share of a qz media piece, I decided I should slow down and look at it more closely.

Lots of Anecdotes

I want to admit up front, I have a perspective going in based on the hundreds of cotton fields I’ve been in. The reality I’ve seen by going on cotton farms for years, is different parts of the US have really different water availability.

Where I lived in Mississippi, we routinely got timely rains and few fields were irrigated though irrigation became more common as people increased the number of crops they were growing on their farms. In Texas, they wouldn’t call that rain-fed because rain is so uncommon so it is dryland cotton where farmers don’t have access to water.

And it has been almost 20 years since I first saw cotton agronomists and breeders using an Aqua Spy technology to measure the amount of water in the soil profile and looking for those genetics that did best in low water environments.

But I wanted to see what goes beyond my anecdotes.

Water Use in Cotton

In the past decade, Cotton Incorporated (yes, the people from “The Fabric of Our Lives”) has completed some incredibly detailed studies doing a full Life Cycle Assessment of cotton. Farmers, textile manufacturers, and blue jean lovers like me all have a role in cotton’s sustainability. And that report really looks into water use and a lot of other factors. 

Corn is a good rotation partner for cotton. Here a corn crop is shown with drip irrigation which conserves water.

The numbers show the environmental footprint of cotton products is greatest with consumers. It’s part of the reason I take care with laundry, using reduced water levels, wearing jeans several times before washing, prioritizing natural fibers to man-made, etc.

But some cotton farms definitely use irrigation. In the last two decades, less irrigation in the developed world uses the sprinkler or flood systems and more is drip irrigation which places water directly into the root zone where it is much more useful for the plant’s growth and less likely to be lost to evaporation. Here’s a photo of how drip irrigation works in a corn field… it’s kind of like burying a soaker hose just under the soil’s surface. The hose emerges at the end of the row to connect to the pipe or to be clamped off. 

With that, global cotton production accounts for just about 3 percent of agricultural water. You can check out a chart on that on page 38 of this article from Water Resources Management in 2007 and there is a lot more detail too. 

Cotton Leads Explains in a Video

The cotton industry has come together — associations that represent farmers to textile companies — to put a focus on the fiber’s sustainability through the efforts of Cotton Leads. I found this video that talks through a few of the factors… would love to know if any of you still have questions. Would be glad to see if I can track down answers.

The post How water intensive is cotton? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

This past week my Twitter pal @ArveyColumbus sent me a link to a report from one of the organic textile groups. The report said in part:

Despite the recession, manufacturer demand has helped increase global organic cotton production by 15% in 2009-2010, according to a new report by sustainable textile non-profit Textile Exchange, formerly known as Organic Exchange. The Organic Cotton Farm and Fiber Report reveals that India, Syria, and Turkey are the leading organic cotton producers in the world.

Organic Cotton Now Represents 1.1% of Global Cotton Production

Production of organic cotton has grown from 209,950 metric tonnes (MT) in 2008-2009 to 241,276 MT, which is just over 1.1 million bales, grown on 1.14 million acres of land in 2009-2010. According to the Textile Exchange, these figures show that organic cotton now represents 1.1 percent of global cotton production.

via Global Organic Cotton Production Increased 15% in 2010 : TreeHugger.

Since I’ve worked in the cotton business a long time, profess my love of the fiber in my Twitter ID and blog address so Cheri thought I may have some thoughts to share on the topic. Although we traded some quick tweets, its far easier to really put my thoughts together in a blog post. So I’ll touch on a few topics raised in this report. And I have to say, if any cotton experts read this, please point out if my logic or info is incorrect. I worked on this over the weekend, did my own research and would appreciate insight others in cotton can offer. 

Increased organic cotton production in 2010 — This report says organic production grew 15 percent in 2010. That sounds very plausible to me. If you look at cotton production in 2010 compared to 2009, there was about 14 percent increase globally of cotton production in total according to the USDA-Foreign Ag Service according to the January 12, 2011 report. (Screen capture here as I’m not sure how long that report will be live.) With that in mind, organic cotton seems to have increased similarly.

India, Syria and Turkey were the leading producers or organic cotton — Part of Cheri’s interest was about US organic cotton production. I know a few farmers who have grown organic cotton. The crop, like other organic crops, offers a premium to farmers who go through the certification program. This report cited production in foreign countries and there was some interest from Cheri about whether more organic, local cotton production was anticipated. From what farmers tell me the current premium & market doesn’t provide them the incentive needed to plant more organic cotton. Having been to two of the three countries listed (Turkey & India) and having seen their cotton production methods first hand, I think the ability to use manual labor and sometimes child labor has a direct impact on cost of production there whereas US crops are far more mechanized.

Part of the reasoning I’ve heard is that insects can be devastating to cotton — and if you aren’t familiar with the incredibly high insect populations we can have in the Cotton Belt, I’ve got friends in the Delta who would be glad to let you try to sit outside for an evening in July. There are bugs that will eat any and everything, moving or not. Cotton produces some great plant sugars, etc that attracts some of those insects when plants are flowering or putting on bolls. If you want to see some of the insects that can inflict economic damage on cotton, check out this photo library at Texas A&M (caution, seeing this near bedtime could be bad news for sleep patterns if you grow cotton!)

The boll weevil, long the enemy of cotton farmers, has been virtually eradicated as it is not native to the US. Major pests include worm species, aphids & plant bugs, etc.

How much cotton is produced globally or in the US? The USDA-FAS report cited above put 2010 production at 115.46 million bales, with 18.32 million bales of that being grown in the US. The US figure is a fairly dramatic increase compared to the previous crop of just over 12 million bales. There are a number of factors that made 2009 a tough year for cotton producers across a wide swath of the Southern US and the better weather patterns really showed up as did increased acreage.

What does demand for natural fibers look like? Is organic the major component? Cheri asked about with the rise in interest in “natural” categories as it applies to fibers, with a question to organic specifically. Cotton demand is pretty good these days and the price has reflected that — in fact, recently we had historic highs. Personally, I seem to fill closets & drawers with cotton — different styles & colors of jeans, a few more cherished hoodies and the move to business casual and the ubiquitous khakis has been good for cotton demand. But when you look at world fiber demand, you have more people in more parts of the world who as they gain economic buying power may want to purchase something more for their closet or home.

The natural fibers like cotton, wool, silk and linen feel so good that they are a primo choice! The efforts to assess the sustainability of cotton show what the environmental footprint of the crop looks like from farmers throughout the life cycle of the product. And when you talk with many cotton farmers in the US, biotech has enabled them to embrace some environmentally-preferred practices like conservation tillage. When you look at the footprint of cotton, it’s another reason to pick cotton!

I hope that helps answer some of Cheri’s questions. It provides at least my train of thought and experience as I looked at the article and the thoughts she raised.

If you are a person who prefers organic cotton, I’d be interested to know what leads you to that preference.

If you have cotton questions, please feel free to raise them in the comments section. I can either take a stab at answering them here (or in a blog post) or get someone else to since I tend to know a bunch of cotton peeps!

The post Report says Global Organic Cotton Production Increased 15% in 2010 & My Thoughts appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I could be in heaven. America’s Heartland, the awesome show that PBS airs to help Americans learn about agriculture is focused on cotton for an entire show! Yes, it’s a must-see Episode 617 – The Cotton Harvest. While I’d suggest you watch the entire episode, the reality that many of us like to watch small clips leads me to do short blog posts on each segment since the segments really range across the cotton spectrum. 

I start where the episode starts — on the Louisiana cotton farm of Jay Hardwick. But first I have to tell you a bit about Jay. I first met Jay more than a decade ago! He’s in Newellton, Louisiana and is an avid environmentalist and conservationist.

Like many cotton farmers, Jay doesn’t fit the stereotype people may have about cotton farmers. His story includes a stint as the art department chairman of Southern Methodist University according to this article by the Delta Farm Press with a great photo too! 

And he’s found science and technology are some of his biggest enablers. As Jay says, “The technology that is going into crops to make them insect resistant, this is a huge opportunity for agriculture because up to this point we’ve had to use a tremendous amount of pesticides to grow these crops. Now cotton is being grown with far less pesticides which should be comforting to many, many people.”

Understanding the resources on his farm are the the ones that have provided for the family’s farming successes for generations, Jay and his family consider environmental stewardship a must. In fact, Marshall Hardwick points out that it takes 100 years to produce an inch of top soil so they have to make their decisions based on preserving soil. That drives some of the no-till practices the family has employed.

You can watch the segment on the Hardwick’s farm and their environmental practices here. And you can watch the full episode here.

America’s Heartland is available on many PBS stations throughout the country. Enter your zip code here and find out if it’s airing on your local public television channel. Please note that each station has its own schedule, and not every station is airing the same episode at the same time. You can also catch the show on RFD-TV on Wednesdays at 8 pm EST, and Sundays at 11:30 pm EST. A complete weekly schedule is here.

The post Cotton 101: America’s Heartland Provides Video Look at Cotton Farming appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Okay. Gin Trash. The two words together… gin trash… the number of jokes that you can come up with based on those two simple words… Its unbelievable! BUT this is a Cotton 101 series so I better get back on track.

But let me start by saying the fact that we call it “gin trash” in no way reflects it has the properties of other trash. It’s very much an eco-friendly product of plant parts. And a number of researchers have looked into the potential uses of gin trash.

Some of the uses I have heard discussed are mulch/fertilizer, livestock food or building material but a friend of mine recently told me that it was also being used as part of the land forming efforts he had to repair some areas of a field.

So some folks are making one ginner’s trash another man’s treasure I guess.

The post Cotton 101: Who Takes Out the Gin Trash? appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

In the past couple of years, I’ve heard more about denim being used as insulation for homes. The memories that are clearest for me are around old jeans being converted to an eco-friendly housing component as this part of the world focused on rebuilding New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (the Dirty Laundry Tour of college campuses in 2006 working with Habitat for Humanity efforts).

I know some denim drives have been held to help increase awareness in this way of recycling old jeans and denim skirts in a doubly environmentally-friendly way! Why double environmentally?

1. The cotton garments don’t go into a landfill
2. They are used to make homes more energy efficient

I love the “Cotton. From Blue to Green.” campaign! So if this has been happening since 2006, why am I so excited? Well, because this week alone I’ve seen two household name companies — both Levi Strauss and The Gap — show their support for taking “Cotton. From Blue to Green.” I love this!

The Gap Offers to ‘Recycle Your Blues’

First, if you are going shopping this weekend or in the near future, consider going to The Gap. If you don’t want to go, at least check out this great video that creatively shows how they are involved in “Cotton. From Blue to Green.”

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoxkvmayddk]

To get the details, you can see coverage of the announcement from the Sacramento Bee.

Levi Strauss Supporting Community Organizations

The announcement from Levi’s may not have the same creativity as The Gap’s video

Levi Strauss & Co. Creates a $100,0000 Denim Insulation Fund to Help Community Organizations “Green” Their Buildings

SAN FRANCISCO (October 4, 2010) – To help community organizations become more sustainable, Levi Strauss & Co. today announced the launch of a $100,000 denim insulation fund, an initiative designed to reuse unwanted denim while keeping it out of landfills. The company will provide grants to organizations currently undergoing construction projects to offset the cost difference of using recycled denim insulation instead of conventional insulation.

“Denim is a staple in nearly everyone’s wardrobe, but it shouldn’t be a staple in our landfills,” said Jill Nash, vice president of corporate affairs, Levi Strauss & Co. “By encouraging our consumers to donate unwanted jeans and then promoting recycled denim as insulation in buildings, we can green our communities from the inside out and extend the lifecycle of every pair of jeans.”

The company will be accepting proposals from non-profit organizations from October 1 – November 21, 2010. This program is for U.S. based nonprofits organizations. Additional details about the program and how to submit a proposal can be found at https://www.levistrauss.com/sustainability/product/re-use.

via Levi Strauss & Co. Creates a $100,0000 Denim Insulation Fund to Help Community Organizations “Green” Their Buildings | Levi Strauss & Co..

I love that Levis will be directing money to green projects for charitable donations. I think that makes the double win grow exponentially!

Learning More about Cotton

Cotton is a natural fiber that comes from the Earth, it seems a perfect end to the product to go into another earth-friendly use.

If you want to know more about cotton farming, you may find this blog post about harvest of interest. You can also follow some folks in the cotton world on Twitter — I’d start with @Tweet4Cotton, @Supima and @CottonFarming.  You can also like the Cotton page and Gap on Facebook. And of course, I love tweeting about cotton enough that it’s in my name, @JPlovesCOTTON. 

The post Making Old Blue Jeans Green — Recycling for Warmth appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I started tapping this blog entry as we reached our cruising altitude on a flight home. It’s been a long weekend with a lot going on work-wise.  Good stuff for the cotton business, but there seemed to be more than a few things making me feel a bit off my pace.  I know it won’t be posted til I’m home but I want to capture these thoughts. I’ll need to reread because I’m not so great on the Blackberry for the lengths this will likely go.

Although I’m a frequent traveler, rarely does the person in the seat next to me garner such a reaction. What makes this flight home different?

The day itself has been far less than the stellar day I was hoping for. I have been rained on, delayed, and pushed around, really hungry I even had to run through Atlanta’s airport. But  a few hours ago, I decided I’d keep a positive mindset. So when I saw a very friendly face look up & smile as I reached my row on the last plane of the day, I thought the day was finally taking a turn for the positive. I was looking for improvement too soon though.

The Atlanta parking lot that caused me to run between flights.

Friendly Convo To Start

Conversation started off friendly enough, albeit sad. The woman next to me was concerned about a friend sitting in first class. The pair is traveling together, but only one got upgraded. Her friend is in the final stages of lung cancer, so of course my seatmate is deservedly concerned about her.

Our conversation turns to the normal chit-chat that I have to admit I usually avoid on flights. She’s from London originally, hence the accent I noticed she has but she was right it had mellowed since she’s lived in Memphis a long time. I’d been running all day and was just glad to be on the final leg of this trip.  I asked what she does and she says mostly volunteer work now.  She asks me and I reply that I work in the cotton business for a company that improves seeds… its Monsanto & the seeds are called Deltapine.

There was an audible gasp, and her eyes opened so much it startled me. She said “Monsanto is evil.” This is where the stress came in. I have read this before, but the fact that I was hearing it today since I’d been making a lot of effort to stay positive seemed like a test. Really. And to have the person, who I’ve pleasantly visited with for five minutes, looking right at me like I’m evil, having just said that heard I am part of Monsanto. It was certainly a test…a test of the Janice-response system.

Take a Deep Breath

Seriously, how often do you call someone evil & mean it? She was dead serious. This was no joke like when friends pull a practical joke & you jokingly say they are evil for playing along.

I paused and glanced out the window at the terminal wishing for a minute I had simply missed the flight, but I knew I had to have more of a conversation.  And while I didn’t take notes, I started typing once the conversation had drifted off …. me to my i-pod and her to a book.  I began to write quickly so I could capture what had just occurred. Hopefully that would make it more accurate.

I turned after catching my breath… “What about Monsanto, exactly, makes you think we are evil?”

“The whole monopoly… biotechnology… forcing your products on the third world… everything.  I am much more of an organic person.”

I explain that I’ve worked in agriculture for almost 20 years, and a little more than two of those years have been at Monsanto.  I’m very comfortable with what we do here. In fact, I have a deep confidence that we are helping improve the world.  I also have a brother who farms organically & I don’t think we have to pick a single way to produce food, but that a combined approach may be best.  I grin and say that I know if my brother and I can talk diplomatically, we can as well.  She laughs and agrees.

“Okay, I’d like to understand a bit more. I don’t see how we can be accused of being a monopoly when my chief competition is DuPont, Bayer, etc. We do ag & ag only. And we do it really well.”

She acknowledges we have major competitors.  Biotech food really bothers her.  She brought up not wanting fish genes in her tomatoes (our company site has a post on this mistaken rumor).  On biotech…I ask if she is familiar with the different kinds of biotech.  I ask if she knows about insect-protected plants, because that was what first exposed me to biotech.  She doesn’t so I want to explain how I see it.

My Experience in Cotton

To me, Bollgard has made the third world a better, healthier place. Early in my career, I had the chance to talk to some researchers at Rutgers and Auburn who were studying life expectancy and medical issues in rural China.  Health in these areas, even life expectancy was better.  Similar research seemed to indicate women farmers and their children in Africa were faring better as well.  And I had heard first- and second-hand accounts all those years ago to corroborate the research

I say I’m probably more of a Peace Corps-type person than she could imagine. My earliest work with biotech was alongside a friend who had worked on water systems in Kenya. The friend worked for us in Africa, and I remember how she would tell stories of farmers who used biotech and advanced seed being able to build a second room on their house or send a daughter to school with the increased revenue.  The farmers and my friend attributed this to the difference of increases in income due to biotech. For me, this is a major part of the power of biotech.

As I share my story, she can see my passion for agriculture. That passion has the power of science, but also a deep-seated belief in doing what’s right.

This connects to something I’ve seen first-hand… having had too many chances to see what science can do to heal. How medicine can make a difference, and that I think people forget how interconnected the life sciences are.  My example is a boy that was in my sister’s class one year who had very painful issues with sickle cell.  I sincerely would take anything from me, a fish, a tomato or whatever to help that boy if I could. To me, biotech offers that hope to both the boy struggling with disease and the world struggling to produce food with dwindling resources.

What about the third world?

We talk about how the people in the third world have the right to make decisions for themselves. I believe people deserve the opportunity to produce food for themselves so starvation isn’t such a plague. When I share this belief with people, it is frequently met with a similar concept…my seatmate brought up birth control .   I’ve gotten strangely used to hearing people bring up population control it seems as the option to growing more food.  But I don’t see it as either or.

My friend Percy from South Africa has been on a personal mission for more than a decade trying to get better information out in that country.  It’s not just about unwanted pregnancy, but about stopping the spread of HIV, which has a horrible effect in many African countries.  I agree with Percy’s concept–that educating people about practices and providing them access to different technologies can make a difference Biotech certainly has followed similar paths in other places, make it so children aren’t required to farm, let them go to school, let them improve their lives, and people see a different future for themselves.  Of course my concept around access and education includes a comprehensive approach–birth control, education, agriculture, etc.

I was glad to see that this woman, who seemed so friendly, appeared interested in having the conversation rather than shutting her mind down to it.  And I was a bit proud of myself for being able to hang in there.  No doubt directly calling someone evil can be a bit of a hindrance to constructive conversation.  After several minutes of ag discussion, we turned to other topics.

Moving on to Other Things

We talked about the care her friend was getting for her cancer (same specialist my grandmother used and one of the best). They were returning from a wedding in Pittsburgh, and there was a series of things happening there too…flights were complicated. Both of their husbands had to take alternate routes.

She was surprised to hear we live within a few miles of each other in Memphis, shop at the same bookstore and we love the same appetizer at a local restaurant.  She was still surprised about my brother farming organically, and that I shop at the Fresh Market and Trader Joe’s at times.  I was surprised the mention of Trader Joe’s brought up the idea of a petition to support its arrival in Memphis.  I’d seen one online requesting a Trader Joe’s but was surprised when she said  she didn’t sign because she worries Memphis couldn’t support both a Trader Joe’s and a Whole Foods.  We both got a knowing laugh when I asked if that meant she supported Whole Foods having a monopoly.

Seriously though, the conversation started with what could have been an absolute ender for me if I had “bowed up.”  (Note: guess this is a southern phrase, but it means to get mad and strike back.)  But I took it as a chance to simply have a discussion.  Not to shutdown due to the insult I felt, whether it was intended or not.  As we prepared for the arrival in Memphis, she said she may see me at the bookstore.  And I replied, maybe you’ll keep looking for information on what we talked about – maybe even talk to a few farmers.  She said she had a friend who farmed cotton.  He’s told her he couldn’t imagine farming without our technology, which was reassuring to me.  I left reminding her how drought technology could be critical in a world with diminishing resources.

It was really good to get home.

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