Vintage fashion is definitely sustainable, but with the popularity of those two things companies want the branding too like J. Crew Always. J. Crew announced their new approach to vintage as part of the company’s sustainability effort & I am so in.

And I’m not going to lie, there were some prized J. Crew clothing in the 90s that will forever reside in my heart.

J. Crew has long been a brand that dives deep into cotton and other natural fibers. Based on the quality of the garments and how much customers are loyal to the brand, it’s easy to bet people have held onto some of their favorite clothing from years past even if they don’t fit!

And while some of those choice outfits come back as teens go retro and search parents closets, others search these items out in resale shops from Goodwill to PoshMark and beyond. Some doesn’t have as clear a path.

And let’s face it, fashion from the 90s is hot enough to be lighting up Instagram!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Now J. Crew wants a piece of it — via J. Crew Always — financially and from the customer experience viewpoint. And the halo back to the brand.

Under the company’s new “J. Crew Always” banner, pre-owned styles will be listed through its website and through ThredUp (TDUP.O), an online consignment platform which partners with the clothing retailer on resale services.

Reuters

My guess is 90s fashion will be popular whether it comes from a closet in the house, a resale shop that sales a range of brands or the new J. Crew Always banner. But J. Crew is making a clear indication they want that relationship with customers old and new, much as REI has done with it’s Re-supply effort.

The post Embracing Vintage and Sustainability with Some Branding like J. Crew Always appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I’m not sure when I first became familiar with Garrison Keillor’s work, but it seems like I’ve always known him. In some ways, I think my watching The Waltons as a kid somehow merged with his Prairie Home Companion. I mean, the feeling of nostalgia and simplicity was probably the tie. And the image of the Waltons listening to radio & his big following without video. Anyway, a friend sent me the email he’d gotten thanks to his subscribing to Garrison Keillor’s website & I dove right in.

It is kind of heartwarming & funny how he starts the post talking about how his wife is always pushing him to do better for the planet. Most of us are striving to leave the planet we call home better than we found it and yet, most of us also know someone who is far more committed to the idea than us. We have a range of things that come with that social license… sometimes we subscribe full, others we have a different view and still others we ignore. I’ve known more than a few people who dated, married or somehow became connected to someone who wanted them to give up meat based on the environmental footprint as they understand it. But I also know a lot of people who have very different reads on that. And when Keillor lets us all get a shared laugh at the reality most of us have an omnivorous diet, even if that means sneaking meat, I was ready to move on.

And then I realized why the friend thought of me. Keillor writes about her comments on cotton with a sense of exasperation cause he, like me has a deep love of cotton:

But the other day she told me that cotton is a bad fabric, that to grow the cotton to make three pairs of jeans uses more water than a person will drink in a lifetime. And dreadful chemicals are employed in the making of denim. “What am I supposed to wear? Silk?” I said. She told me that silk is more sustainable. So is linen.

But cotton?? I love cotton. Jeans are my uniform. I walk down the street in old faded jeans and a black T-shirt and I am 25 again, a young attitudinous writer.

Unexpectedly on a dark day, light shines through from GarrisonKeillor.com

I would love to personally invite the Keillor couple to go deeper than the ideas that cotton as a fabric is “bad” or that chemicals are “dreadful.” I hope he used literary license. Lots of people have read about the water footprint of cotton and yet few have had the chance to dig into the topic with some depth. I’d like to help Garrison and his significant other (is her name Jenny?) get to know cotton on a deeper level.

I love that Jenny’s advice is to stick with natural fibers — I am certainly a fan! I have some great linen clothes for summer and my hatred of cold weather means I truly love wool in winter. And while some folks will point out polyester uses less water, I think Jenny and I will agree that the footprint of synthetics with a dependence on petroleum takes us down a whole other path. And I am one of those folks who wears jeans several times before putting them in the laundry.

My passion for the natural fiber has led me to spend hundreds of hours with farmers asking them about how the crop is grown. It would also be a chance for me to learn too. I don’t have all the answers on the topic of cotton by any means, but after decades of talking to people who grow the crop, others who design fabrics, and who look at dyes and finishes and more I have found it has been improving leaps and bounds over the past few decades. And, we’d have a great time doing a small tour of some points of interest in the conversation about cotton and we could learn a lot.

A Potential Travel Itinerary

We could start with a farm visit. If Jenny & Garrison are ready to go, I hope to spend tomorrow/Friday in the Missouri Bootheel showing a friend what cotton plants look like. We’ll have a chance to ask a farmer about how he utilizes water on the farm. We plan to see Darren and he has some irrigation but also has some dryland cotton. What’s amazing is how precise irrigation is and how farmers understand the soils they have, things that they can do to help the soil capture rainfall and retain it for use later. They pay close attention to flow rates of water and more. Those are improvements that have been happening throughout the decades I’ve been learning from farmers. PS — Darren sent a photo to make sure I keep focus on my visit.

But I should mention we may not be able to go because he may be rained out. And rain on cotton at harvest can cause some tough issues in terms of soil health, crop quality and yield. And while it isn’t exactly Lake Wobegon, there’s a YouTuber in Minnesota who grew & made his own tshirt!

We could learn about fiber use after the farm. How’s Cary, North Carolina? or maybe Lubbock, Texas? When cotton moves from the farm, it goes through ginning & warehousing before you get into carding, spinning, etc. Eventually you get to the finishing and dying. It’s awesome to see this up close and personal. understand how it is done because each company is in improvement mode too. I like seeing this in the labs at Cotton Inc. or Texas Tech first, but then seeing it done at scale with denim or towels… that’s amazing.

One of the things I have been impressed by, is how many scientists are looking at ways to make all of these processes better environmentally. One of the innovations that really blew me away on a visit was the way the worn look can now be achieved with lasers (yes LASERS!) instead of chemicals.

And if they want to come to St. Louis with me, I can introduce them to a researcher at the Danforth Center I met a few years ago as I had the chance to see what plant breeding is doing to see if indigo can make a resurgence!

Lots to Talk About

In my experience, this diving deeper offers so much to all of us. And while I have studied up some on why people have the impression that cotton is so water intensive, I am always amazed at how much more there is to be learned. And quite frankly I learn more by talking with people who have different questions or presuppositions than I do!

I have the feeling that Jenny and I agree that the constant purchasing of clothes for right now rather than thinking about the perfect t-shirts that you will wear long-term (Have mercy I love a good black v-neck! Have had some well made ones for close to 10 years!) Also like dresses that can be worn across seasons and dressed up or down to easily help reduce our personal footprint. And those things keep the commercial bug at bay.

The post Dreaming of a Cotton Trip with Garrison Keillor & His Wife appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

I have to admit, writing about farmers soiling their undies makes me feel like an elementary school kid with the giggles. I can hear classmates coming up with a million ways to use the phrase — Did you soil your undies? Uh, oh teacher, so-and-so soiled his undies. Does it smell when you soil your undies? and so many more things. But we are introducing a pretty important concept in this silly way when we talk about why farmers soil their undies.

What is “soil your undies” about?

The fact that cotton has a great environmental footprint as a natural fiber, breaking down over time, cotton can be recycled in various ways. It has the whole earth-to-earth thing going on.

So knowing all of that, some people wanting to help people better understand their farm’s soil health, created the “Soil Your Undies” campaign. Since then, a variety of agricultural groups have been encouraging farmers to do the “Soil Your Undies” challenge — my friend Brenda Frketich did it last year with a massive pair that the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service gave her.

Brenda and her family grow nuts & grass in Oregon. She made it a fun lesson for her kids too. Got them out in the field to help her dig the hole and fill it. It is funny that a few folks asked if they were her dad’s or something, but really, the oversized ones are nice because it is more challenging and easier to see what happens.

This video from Australia’s Cotton Info explains how they were encouraging farmers across the country to bury a couple of pairs of undies in different places on their farms. The undies are buried in the soil getting good soil to cotton connectivity. The fun comes a couple of months later when the farmers dig them back up!

Don’t worry, there is another video for that too!

The Results of Soiling Your Undies

The variations of soils, weather conditions, microbial activity and more are seen as these undies get dug up! This video shows a scientist in the lab talking about it and I have to admit, his talking about all of this scientifically about the amounts of degradation and how much difference he sees in undies between two well known cotton growing areas of Goondiwindi and Moree.

The findings that he shows really grabs my sense of wonder. The fact that they tested a hypothesis that some young scientists had as well as had someone who was too impatient to wait for the ones Cotton Info was bringing their way and planted their own. Ended up planting a cotton blend and you can really see the difference with the elastane!

Wonder about your soil?

The great thing about this is how easy it is to run tests for yourself.

If you are a farmer, you were given a lot of ideas through the videos on how to pick two different environments to choose between.

If you live in the city? Do you have a raised bed garden? A flower bed that you have covered with mulch? Some place in the backyard? Next to a compost pile? Maybe a school yard?

Would love to see any tests you do! Shoot me an email, share it on social media with #soilyourundies.

Soiling Polyester Undies

After this post went live, I saw that my friend Bill Robertson who works for the University of Arkansas soiled some undies! Love that he put cotton and polyester in comparison… clear to see which one is biodegradable after use.

.@arcottonman in cotton field today doing “soiled undies” demo at .@cottonplantkid farm today to display benefits of cover crops & environmental harm of polyester (plastic) clothes vs cotton. .@CottonInc .@soil_institute .@AginArk pic.twitter.com/98pnHNg7Ch

— AgCouncilofAr (@AgCouncilofAr) July 25, 2019

The post Farmers Have Been Soiling Their Undies. Here’s Why appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

Since I grew up a city girl, I didn’t how much about Wrangler jeans til I was going to college in Oklahoma. I still remember a girlfriend talking about how great guys looked wearing Wranglers and I was wondering to myself who she was talking about. Needless to say decades of working with family farmers and attending George Strait concerts, I understand that Wranglers are every bit as ubiquitous in that world as Levi’s jeans had been in mine. And I love seeing Wrangler commit to US cotton which am excited to pass along news of!

Wrangler’s Rooted Collection

Now Wrangler is driving that point home in a few new ways — they are marketing jeans and t-shirts that connect back to the family farms that grew them. The collection — Wrangler Rooted — connects to the farm, to US textile mills and more.

Grown, cut and sewn in the USA, the Wrangler Rooted Collection represents a triumph in sustainability. Featuring custom shanks, rivets, patches and pocket prints, the details of each premium jean are a nod to the tireless work ethic and responsible land stewardship of America’s cotton farmers. Each of the five designs includes features that tie these jeans back to healthy soils in each state.

Talking about Sustainability & Soil Health

The timing of the announcement seems perfect to me. I think Wrangler sees that more Americans are interested in the environmental footprint of the clothes they wear. Watching to the videos they have and reading the website, I especiallly noticed a discussion around two of the factors that I have seen a lot of interest in — soil and water.

Listening to cotton farmer Vance Smith from Texas talk about the soils and moisture on his farm in Big Spring, I get as excited as I was the first time I visited Mr Ray on his Louisiana farm! Vance talks about the way his farm saves water, moving to drip irrigation, and how exciting it is to find moisture in the spring, the ways they have reduced tillage, are using cover crops,

Family Farms Growing Cotton for Wrangler

When I first saw the news, I looked through the list anxiously and as I did, I realized that many of the farmers were people I have known for decades. These aer farmers who have been looking for ways to improve their farms as long as I have known them. And Wrangler is sharing the farmer’s stories on the jeans, in ads and on the Wrangler Rooted website.

The company has started with two states and two families — the Newby family in Alabama and the Smiths in Big Spring, Texas — there are Tennessee and North Carolina jeans / farmers.

Watching the videos, I immediately want to buy some of the products! Here’s the video of the Newbys…. Jerry (the older gentleman who starts the video) has a heart of gold. Although I don’t know his children and grandchildren as well, I have met them several times and they seem to carry that trait too. The video captures the family I know well.

Interested in Hearing More?

I have to tell you, looking at this project, it goes beyond win-win.

Environmentally

Having a major brand like Wrangler take the time to go indepth on sustainability matters. Individually there is so much that can be done but with scale for good that a major brand has… well, that brings lots of individual efforts to a greater scale. And in fact, even though I didn’t know this was coming, I had hoped to be on a panel with the sustainability lead for Wrangler’s parent company talking about just this sort of thing last year when we porposed grow to sew for SXSW Interactive.

Quality

Looking at all the details on the jeans, it looks like Wrangler is thinking about it all. The jeans seems to wear the state with pride. There is a state map on the button at the waist and on the leather tag on the back pocket and the inside pockets are incredible!

Supporting US Jobs

Over the last few decades, more and more textiles have been moving out of the US as people looked for cheaper clothes. This return to high quality, provides the pricing cushion that allows more of the work to be done in the United States. And I have to tell you, I’m personally willing to pay more for quality that also provides jobs here. Obviously, I love the fact that cotton farming families are being featured for all the great work they are doing. That may be a bit selfish though as someone who’s worked with cotton so long.

It Feels Good

I just like the idea of knowing the back story on some things. And having had decades of knowing families like the Newbys, I have so much confidence in the products they produce and that just makes me smile. I think I may wait for the Tennessee products coming later this summer since I’m a Memphis girl, but who knows…. some of the Texas & Alabama stuff looks great!

You may see more about this on Hundred Percent Cotton! I am looking forward to seeing more!

The post Wrangler Jeans Shows They are Rooted with Cotton from Family Farms appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

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.

Does Egypt, once know for premium cotton, need to find a cotton alternative? That’s part of the concept behind an article and video recently produced by Living It. The article says drops in Egyptian cotton productivity is impacting textile mills. At the same time, there are lots of plastic drink bottles to be recycled. Perhaps the two things can work together. Creative thinking yields all sorts of things, but there are usually some complexities and the idea that recycled plastic bottles present us with a cotton alternative…. well, that definitely gives me pause. So let’s unpack this a bit.

Egyptian Cotton Hurting

The realities are that the Egyptian cotton industry is indeed hurting. The article mentions the Arab Spring timing as a time when the difficulties grew. The global textile industry has been shifting for decades as has cotton production. We saw the same thing here in the US for a while. Area planted can shift with productivity and world prices.

Since Egypt has government controls in place, plant breeding is slower than other world areas. And when there are issues of hunger in the country/region, it would make sense that some area planted to cotton may move to other crops. The reduced cotton fiber locally could definitely provide a challenge to Egyptian mills. So looking at alternatives makes sense.

Recycling Rocks!

I definitely am supportive of recycling efforts and I try to be mindful about choices I make so I can reduce packaging, etc. While it seems incrdibly simple, the simple act of carrying a water bottle with me almost everywhere has enabled me to cut way back on plastic bottles. I like various ideas to reuse and recycle the pastics in use but it seems today that people are willing to assume recycling, or the circular economy can do anything and everything. On this one I say not so fast.

A recent article in Nature points out that just 6 percent of materials are recycled. Looking for more ways to use recycled goods and to encourage long life products and the ultimate recycling of them whenever possible. There is a place for plastic-based fiber but is it as an alternative to cotton? Not really.

Comparing Polyester to Cotton

The differences in natural fibers and synthetics are something we’ve discussed on Hundred Percent Cotton several times.

• Cotton is crazy comfortable in part because it is breathable! The comfort and breathability of cotton is something that has been quanitifed time and time again with surveys and testing. I personally have picked up several t-shirts that are a blend without realizing it and have figured it out slowly by realizing how much harder it is to regulate body temperature with the synthetics.
• Since they mention cotton-polyester blends… Don’t for get the environment — We all know we have to clean small fibers from our dryer lint trap routinely. Some fiber lint typically goes down the drain with the water too. natural fibers can biodegrade but synthetic fibers do not and can cause problems much like plastic.
• Disposal / Recycling — Blended fabric isn’t able to be recycled or reused the way it can if you have a 100 percent fabric, the thread can be recycled. Don’t forget the Blue to Green which recycles jeans into home insulation but a cotton-poly blend changes the equation.

And then there is the question of the gentleman in the video saying the polyester has the same genes as cotton. That’s just not even a thing. I don’t know what he is trying to say… maybe it is that they are both cellulose? But

The post Recycled Plastic Bottle Fiber Called a Cotton Alternative appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

It you are like me, you have noticed differences in your closet. Some clothers are hundred percent cotton while others are blends of cotton with other fibers. Occasionally folks will ask me what is best. The answer is it depends.

Understanding How Fiber is Blended

Before I give the reasons one is better or best, let me explain the blend because a lot of folks don’t know much about fiber.

When you have a mixture of fibers, you are combining various fiber qualities into one strand of yarn or into a specific item of clothing, home goods, etc. For instance, the jeans I am wearing today are 95% cotton and 5% spandex or some other stretch fiber which will provide differences in wear I can discuss below.

100 Percent Cotton Jeans

Most of my early life, I wore hundred percent cotton jeans they would take an incredible beating. I could wash and dry them however often, etc. New jeans would take a while to break in so they fit perfectly but at some point, it became easy to find jeans with just a bit of spandex in them. Those blends, tend to fit well on day one.

Problem is a blend never is as durable and I am hard on jeans sometimes. I love wearing jeans so I wear them a lot. And I don’t wash them every time I wear them. Over time jeans that are a blend of fibers will show piling (the little balls of thread) on my thighs where they touch when I walk, more likely to show piling from washing too. The differences in fiber flexibility, strength, etc are what push some fiber away from others.

I still have some jeans with stretch built in, but I actively seek out jeans that 100 percent cotton.

Preferences in Cotton Dresses

Hard to beleive that my recent post on how awesome cotton dresses are didn’t include any mention about whether they are hundred percent or not and that’s for good reason, I have a variety of dresses with a variety of cotton fiber content. I prefer the vast majority of fiber to be natural fibers (cotton, linen, silk, wool, etc.).

I think it is clear that I would love 100% cotton dresses. And that is my preference with the vast majority of clothes, household items, etc. But some fitted dresses, a small amount of spandex is ok.

That small percentage (I look at five percent or less usually) can help with fit at times though a high quality cotton fabric has some natural stretch.

Other Things to Consider With Blends vs 100 Percent

When you look at the impact of fiber beyond my comfort, I think synthetics have a number of issues. Those issues make blends have a different lifecycle than 100 percent cotton products.

• Impact in the environment — Another way the different fibers work apart is to have small fiber loss in the wash, etc. those small fibers when natural will biodegrade in the environment generally but a lot of synthetic fibers can cause problems much like plastic in the environment does.
• Disposal / Recycling — If you have a 100 percent fabric, the thread can be recycled. There is a program called Blue to Green which recycles jeans into home insulation — the presence of synthetics changes that. I have a silk hat that is made from recycled silk from saris. Really awesome. But the spandex in jeans is reducing the use of the fiber later in things like money.

Various natural and synthetic fibers have different fits (this talks through some of the strengths of various natural fibers). If you mix cotton & silk (which feels LOVELY), silk tends to be stronger than cotton because of the way they are formed.

The post What’s better 100% cotton or a blend? It depends. appeared first on Hundred Percent Cotton.

This morning when I did my first check of my social media streams, I came across a post from the fine folks at Cotton Incorporated who celebrate “the touch, the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives.” The article begs the question “The Cotton Controversy: Does Green Have To Be At Odds With Our Whites?”

The author of the piece — Alden Wicker — and I differ significantly in our background knowledge and experiences with cotton, but we both appreciate dialog with people on other parts of the spectrum and realize that is an important part of learning. Her introduction to the article shows she listens to very different descriptions of cotton than you normally see here on my blog but I think it’s important that I acknowledge this sort of information is out there.

You wouldn’t think a nice, bland textile like cotton would be so controversial. But “The Fabric of Our Lives” has become a flashpoint in the battle for more sustainable and ethical clothing. Advocates of eco-friendly fashion accuse the cotton industry of heavy pesticide and herbicide use, dangerous working conditions, and even putting the consumer’s health at risk when we wear its products.

Given how passionate I am about the aforementioned issues, I jumped at the chance to debate a real, live cotton scientist. As a 12-year employee of Cotton Inc., Dr. Ed Barnes’ loyalties definitely lie with conventional cotton. But, I hoped he, being a scientist, would treat me to some real talk.

via Conventional Cotton Facts And Numbers- Is It Safe?.

It is clear that Alden listened and did some checking back on things too. One of the first questions she asked that Ed Barnes of Cotton Incorporated answered challenged what she knew & she checked his facts.

Alden Wicker: Thank you for speaking with me. As you know, the impetus for this interview was Amber Valletta’s April story for Refinery29. The first thing said was that conventionally grown cotton is one of the most heavily sprayed plants in farming.

Ed Barnes: That is definitely not the case. Critics like to say that cotton uses 25% of the world’s pesticides. It’s one of the urban legends that floats out there on the Internet. Global data is hard to get, but we use data from Cropnosis that tracks sales of pesticides around the world. It’s not the perfect data source, since it’s based on dollar values, but we know that cotton uses about 6% of pesticides used. This was surprising to me, but there’s a lot more pesticide use in fruits and vegetables.

Editor’s note: However, also according to Cropnosis, a private company in the U.K., cotton’s share by value of global pesticide consumption declined from 11% in 1988 to 6.8% (worth $3 billion) in 2008. Similarly, the share of insecticide use declined from 19% in 2000 to 15.7% in 2008.

The facts show what I have seen throughout my career — cotton farmers –like my friend Kenneth Hood in the photo — are always improving, doing better for their farms, the environment, their communities and their families. And while I know a lot of people say there is no perfect industry, I would suggest that continual improvement is perfection!

I can’t highlight all the interesting pieces in the article, cause to me all three pages were interesting and that would be theft if I ran more than a couple of excerpts but I encourage you to read Conventional Cotton Facts And Numbers- Is It Safe?.

Beyond the facts, there is a passion that, at the very least, matches Wicker’s, it even leads people like me to tweet about my love of cotton and to create series of posts about the natural fiber here… we also passionately seek improvements!

Related articles

• What’s with that Hayden Panettiere cotton commercial?
• C is for Cotton – an A to Z Series about Agriculture
• First Visit to a North Carolina Cotton Farm
• G is for GMOs – What are GMOs & Why Do Farmers Plant GMO Crops?

The post Taking Time to Check on Cotton Sustainability Facts 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.

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.