Cotton – How bad is it?

Q. Most agricultural crops use insecticides. What’s the big deal about cotton?

A. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), more insecticides are used on cotton than on any other crop. In fact, cotton uses 24 per cent of all insecticides applied globally - that’s 495 million pounds each year. Closer to home, cotton consumes 60 per cent of all insecticides applied in the USA - or 60 million pounds each year.

Q. Cotton’s proportion of insecticide use is similar to other crops, isn’t it?

A. No. Cotton covers 2.4 per cent of the world’s farmland, but uses 24 per cent of the world’s insecticides, according to the World Wildlife Federation.

Q. But these insecticides are safe, aren’t they?

A. No. They are some of the most toxic and persistent chemicals we put into the environment. According to Will Allen of the Sustainable Cotton Project, “Of the top 15 chemicals used in California cotton farming, seven of them cause cancer and all but one cause birth defects.”

Q. Cotton pesticides, like all agricultural pesticides, are carefully regulated aren’t they?

A. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has banned the use of many organophosphate pesticides on food crops because of their high toxicity and link to cancers, reproductive and neurological disorders. But they are still widely used in cotton farming. Cotton by-products, such as cotton seed and husks, are consumed in large quantities by domestic dairy cattle, so these same toxic pesticides find their way into our bodies.

Q. But pesticides give us economic benefits through increased yields, don’t they?

A. Pesticide effectiveness is short-lived because pests quickly develop resistance. Farmers then need to apply more pesticides, more frequently until they have little or no effect, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Gains in yield are quickly surpassed by increased production costs. That’s called the pesticide treadmill. Pesticide manufacturers don’t even acknowledge the increased costs taxpayers hold for health care, lost productivity from illness or environmental clean-up.

Q. How about Genetically Engineered (GE) cotton?

A. About 70 per cent of all cotton crops in the USA are genetically engineered (GE) with the Bt toxin gene, according to the Council for Biotechnology Information. The Union of Concerned Scientists has found the hazards of GE cotton include indiscriminate toxicity to all insects, even the beneficial ones; allergic reactions in humans; and the questionable ethical issue of replacing biodiversity with a patented organism.

Q. What if we replaced conventional and GE cotton farming with true-blue organic cotton?

A. Even organic cotton farming has major environmental impacts. Cotton requires 22,000 litres of fresh water to produce 1 kilogram of cotton lint, according to the World Wildlife Federation, making it the most fresh water intensive crop in the world. The flood irrigation method used on cotton lays waste to huge areas of farm land through increased salinity. The thirsty state of California is now offering farmers tax incentives to wean them off of cotton as a water conservation measure.

Q. If cotton has such relatively low yield in relation to the water, fertilizers and pesticides it requires, why is it such a common fibre?

A. Part of the reason is the huge infrastructure in place that perpetuates it. The agricultural pesticide industry is worth $40-billion U.S. annually, of which 10 per cent goes on cotton crops, according to the FAO and US EPA. In the U.S. alone the cotton industry generates $25-billion U.S. annually and employs 400,000 people, according to the USDA. These numbers mean cotton is big business, and a big business resisting changes to the status quo.

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