Cotton is known as “white gold” in some parts of the world. But the price in pesticide poisonings and the decimation of ecosystems is too high to pay. Only a shift to organic cotton farming will turn the tide.

Designer Katherine Hamnett did something very different at London Fashion Week in 2007. Instead of showcasing her latest ready to wear clothes she featured a film and a report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) in collaboration with the Pesticides Action Network (PAN), exposing the human health and environmental cost of pesticide use in global cotton production.

Hamnett is famous for inspiring a popular fashion campaign for bold, life-affirming slogans printed onto cotton t-shirts during the 1980s. Almost twenty five years later, her collections are still highly prestigious. But now, she is doing everything in her power to support organic cotton farmers, and produces her unique t-shirts only on certified organic cotton, and her latest slogan “Save the Future” is a testament to her values.

At the Museum of Natural History, which hosted this year's event, she told me how she feels about GM cotton. “I'm terrified of it,” she said. “Bt cotton is of no benefit to farmers and has been a massive failure. Monsanto should be broken up! They have taken GM cotton to the scale of genocide in countries like India, and created devastation on all levels.”

The Institute of Science in Society shares her concerns about Bt toxins in GM crops and has also thoroughly documented the failures of GM cotton worldwide. The EJF and PAN joint report The Deadly Cost of Chemicals in Cotton is another damning indictment of the agrochemical industry. The use of forced child labour in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan (see later) is a wake-up call to the fashion industry and consumers to demand organic and fairtrade cotton across the board.

image source Sam Burcher (c) 2007

Conventional cotton awash with hazardous chemicals

For over 5 000 years, global cotton production has occurred without the aid of hazardous agrochemicals. Cotton was planted at low densities and rotated with other crops to ensure the optimum health of the soil. Pest cycles were taken into consideration before planting and harvesting. Things changed after the second World War with the advent of neurotoxins such as DDT that were considered to be a cheaper way of controlling pests than strategic crop management and agricultural labourers. The recent new wave of GM cotton represents 30 percent of the global cotton and estimated to reach 50 percent by 2010.  According to PAN, only 0.15 percent of the world's cotton is guaranteed to be free of pesticide, and organic.

In fact, conventional and GM cotton accounts for 16 percent of global chemical pesticide use, more than any other single crop, and reaps US$2 billion for the chemical industry every year. Of that, US$112 million is spent on Aldicarb, an acutely toxic pesticide classified by the World Health Organisation as “WHO1a”, or “extremely hazardous.” One drop is sufficient to kill an adult male. Yet one million kilos of Aldicarb was applied to cotton crops in the USA in 2003. And, at least 1 million agricultural workers around the world are hospitalised because of acute pesticide poisoning each year.

Food chains and water supplies polluted by chemicals

Conventional cotton is noted as the biggest and most important “non-food” agricultural crop in the world yielding 21.8 million tonnes per year. But some 34 million tonnes of high protein cottonseed is also produced for food and feed annually. Around 24 million tonnes of whole cottonseed, cottonseed husks and meal is used in animal feed, and can make up a quarter of a dairy herds' total nutrition. A further 3.1 million tonnes of cottonseed oil is used for cooking by 8 percent of the world's population. In some areas as much of 65 percent of the cotton harvest can enter the food chain. Both the FAO and WHO recognise that the chemical pesticides applied to cotton can contaminate cottonseed and its derivatives. While several other studies have shown that cottonseed is a “significant pathway by which hazardous pesticides applied to cotton may enter the human food chain.” Therefore, Monsanto has deliberately misled regulators by stating that Bt cotton is not used for food.

Conventional and GM cotton is grown mainly in China, USA, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Australia, Greece and West Africa. Numerous studies have recorded detectable levels of Lindane and Endosulfan, (both organochlorines known for adverse health and environmental impacts) in local water resources in these areas. In India, over 3 000 tonnes of Endosulfan is applied to cotton crops annually. In Brazil, water samples taken from streams, rivers and surface water in the Mato Grosso cotton State, showed that 80 percent were contaminated by Endosulfan. In Ghana's Lake Volta Lindane was present in 22.7 percent of samples and Endosulfan present in 18 percent. In the US, an organophosphate called Dicrotophos used extensively in cotton growing was detected in some 35 percent of samples.

Children and workers at risk from pesticides

The worst affected by pesticides are the developing countries, where 99 percent of cotton production takes place. The WHO reports three million pesticide poisoning per year and 20 000 unintentional deaths, largely among the rural poor in the third world. Human causalities are unsurprising as pesticides are designed to inhibit the growth of organisms by impairing the biological processes necessary to life. Symptoms of acute pesticide poisoning include vomiting, skin rashes, headaches, tremors, respiratory problems, muscle cramps, blurred vision, loss of co-ordination, seizures and death.

India has 8.3 million hectares under cotton, the largest area in the world. Despite using only 5 percent of land area, cotton accounts for 55 percent of the annual total of US$355 million spent on pesticides. A staggering US$255 million is spent just on controlling the bollworm cotton pest every year. Children of farm workers are particularly vulnerable to agrochemical exposure as they play or help in the fields. A 2003 study in India compared 899 children living in cotton regions with those where few agricultural pesticides were in use. The results showed that children living in cotton producing areas performed significantly worse in tests assessing mental ability, cognitive skills, concentration, balance and co-ordination.  A 2005 study in three different villages, all farming conventional cotton recorded 323 separate instances of ill health over a five months period, 83.6 percent of which were associated with pesticide poisoning.

There is a chronic lack of protective apparatus, poor labelling of pesticides, and inadequate safeguards to protect farm workers and their families in developing countries. Cotton workers are often so poor they are forced to store pesticides within their homes, improvise with their own utensils to apply chemicals to cotton and to re-use the empty pesticide canisters as water vessels.  A tragic tale is the death of four children whose dad left his pesticide soaked clothes on the roof after a day’s work.  During the night it rained and the pesticides dripped through the roof onto the breakfast bowls in the kitchen below, which the children ate from in the morning.  A case study in a return to natural and organic practices demonstrates how to avoid the health risks and ecological damage resulting from conventional farming. (See Stem Farmers Suicides with Organic Farming).

West African farmers dependent on pesticides

Over ten million people are dependent on cotton grown in French speaking Benin and Mali [4]. There the resourceful farmers produce cotton crops by relying entirely on rainwater. However, they are dependent on privatised cotton companies that control the infrastructure of seeds, fertilisers and pesticides supplied to them on credit. But because the farmers are also dependant for collection of their unsubsidised cotton harvest they must adhere to a pesticides spraying regime of at least 6-10 chemical sprays per season.  

By 1999, the cotton pests had become resistant to the most commonly used poisons, so a research company attached to the French Government recommended that Endosulfan be used for the first two sprays of each season. Shortly after that, the authorities reported the deaths of 37 people within farming communities and a further 36 with serious health problems. These complaints were followed up by an NGO , the Organization Beninoise pour la Promotion de l'Agriculture Biologique, which confirmed 24 fatalities and estimated a further 70 deaths in cotton areas. The independent investigations continued for a further two spraying seasons; 577 chemical poisonings and 97 deaths were recorded during 2000-2003, of which 69 percent were attributable to Endosulfan.

Organic cotton better for farmers than GM cotton

There is hope for African cotton farmers determined to grow organic cotton, as many African countries are fighting to remain GM-free under intense pressure. Mali is producing 1 500 tonnes of organic cotton a year, much of which UK retail giant Marks and Spencer is buying under fair trade and demand outstrips supply. However, the difficulty with mainstreaming organic cotton production in Mali is that where soil fertility has declined under intensive conventional cotton farming the methods to improve soil health such as composting, green manure, and cattle dung requires land that is already under crop.

Monsanto has pushed aggressively into neighbouring Burkino Faso where trials of Bt cotton are underway [4].  If GM cotton gets a foothold in West Africa it will be harder to establish an effective organic production system. To that end, a citizen's jury of farmers met to consider the effects of growing GM cotton with representatives of government, NGOs, researchers, and other farmers who have been growing Bt cotton in South Africa. The jury unanimously voted to ban GM cotton in favour of improving traditional varieties, low input agriculture and local seed varieties. The benefits for organic cotton farmers were perceived as lower costs, higher prices for harvests and reduced health problems. ISIS has reported on the benefits of organic farming for rural communities in Africa and India.

Uzbekistan – State enforced cotton slavery

In Uzbekistan the use of chemicals in cotton production has gone overboard. It is estimated the between 20kg and 90kg of pesticide is used per hectare of cotton. And that this has contaminated 90 percent of the land and groundwater at 100-150metres with DDT and lindane. The Uzbekistan State forces children, teachers and doctors away from their desks for months at a time throughout the year to spray pesticides and harvest cotton in the fields. Schools are closed for cotton picking and children are often beaten and underpaid for their efforts. (note: Uzbekistan child labour has subsequently been the subject of a major investigation by BBC2 Newsnight) Studies on children in rural areas reveal a litany of diseases linked to environmental heath problems and toxicology such as immune deficiencies, chronic renal and lung disease, developmental retardation, and hypothyroidism. Downstream of cotton plantations, a NATO study recorded DNA mutations that are 3.5 higher than normal, rendering populations vulnerable to cancers.

The Aral Sea has been extensively drained of water for cotton production in Uzbekistan for many years which has decimated ecosystems and traditional livelihoods. According to Medecins Sans Frontiers, an estimated 43 million tonnes of pesticide-laden dust is blown throughout Central Asia every year from the dried up seabed and contaminated soils. The region suffers the highest incidence of throat cancers in the world.

Organic cotton - a healthy economic and ecological alternative

Organic cotton production is based on a system of farming that maintains and regenerates soil fertility without the persistent use of chemicals, toxins, pesticides, fertilizers or GM seeds or sprays [11]. There has been a huge surge in consumer demand for organic cotton products in recent years. According to the Organic Exchange Organic Cotton Market Report 2007 global retail sales increased 85 percent to US$1.1billion in 2006, (up from US$583million in 2005) and is projected to increase by 83 percent to US$1.9 billion by the end of 2007.

The Organic Exchange predicts that by 2008 the organic cotton market will be worth US$3.5 billion and almost double that by 2010. Global corporations such as Wal-Mart (USA) and Nike (USA), Woolworth (SA) and C&A (Belgium) are expected to have been the biggest users of organic cotton in 2007. The Organic Exchange shows that organic cotton has increased 53 percent between the years 2005 and 2007 with a 265 517 bales produced in 24 countries on all arable continents. The top organic cotton producing countries are Turkey, India, China, Syria, Peru, The USA, Uganda, Tanzania, Israel and Pakistan.

Other smaller fashion companies coming forward in the expansion of organic fibres markets such as cotton, wool and linen are Edun (Ireland) and People Tree (UK) who run organic cotton community Fair Trade programmes in India, Africa, and Central and South America.

Choosing the right cotton

The reports by the EJF and PAN underline the urgency of changing the ways in which conventional cotton is farmed and purchased. I asked Katherine Hamnett what else could be done. “I would like to see a ban on cotton from Uzbekistan, cotton should be organic, and the cotton subsidies in USA, EU, and China should be stopped,” she said, “It’s not about choosing something else, it’s about choosing the right cotton.”