Have you cottoned on yet?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never understood why people harp on about organic cotton. It’s always just seemed a little pretentious to me. We don’t eat cotton, so what’s the big deal if the cotton we buy isn’t organic? And to be honest with you, I very rarely go out of my way to buy organic fruits and veg, so it never really made much sense to ensure my wardrobe was full of organic cotton.

But it’s funny to think that something we take so much comfort in could have such a huge impact on people’s lives and the environment.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, the wool, or should I say cotton, has really been pulled over our eyes on this one.

To give you some background, cotton is grown in over 100 countries, with leading contenders being China, USA, India, Pakistan and Brazil. And these countries are apparently responsible for a whopping 11% of the total production of pesticides in the world and 24% of the worlds insecticides. (source – The EJE Foundation)

Let’s talk pesticides.

Ok, you’ve heard it all before, pesticides are bad. Sure they serve their purpose, they allow for the mass production of crops to feed a population of 7 billion. But long term exposure to pesticides is incredibly damaging to ones health. Non-organic cotton farmers, their families and the surrounding environment that is exposed everyday, are the highest at risk.

As a crop, conventional cotton requires the largest amount of pesticides out of any crops grown non-organically.

Many of the chemicals used in pesticides were originally developed as toxic nerve agents during WWII.

and this is what many conventional cotton farmers and their communities are exposed to everyday. You can probably guess what kind of effect this level of exposure can have on a human. Over exposure to harmful pesticides can cause infertility, birth defects, cancer and this barely scratches the surface. In fact, it’s evident throughout various farming communities across India where children are born with physical deformities and mental retardations.

Pesticides also have a harmful effect on the environment (surprise, surprise) poisoning water sources, damaging ecosystems and of course killing wildlife, and if that isn’t enough, India has witnessed around 300,000 farmer-suicides over the past two decades (Philpott, 2015; Mishra, 2014) and ‘Biotech opponents attribute the majority of these suicides to the monopolisation of the cotton seed sector’ with Monsanto, along with a major lack of governmental support and inappropriate compensation from the Indian government.

The original native cotton seeds are apparently no longer obtainable, so with pesticides rising in price, the market price for cotton decreasing, and uncontrollable weather conditions destroying crops, farmers are forced to give up their farms and are no longer able to pay the extortionate, high interest loans they originally took out to purchase their farms.

So, what are the alternatives?

The hard truth is that by purchasing non-organic cotton, you’re supporting the unethical practices of non-organic cotton farming, the devastating effects it has on the physical and mental health of farmers, their families, future families, communities and of course, the environment.

I’m not into shaming people’s purchases, because let’s face it, not every single purchase we make will come from a clean supply chain. But if your next purchase isn’t preloved, you should seriously consider buying organic cotton that is GOTS certified (Global Organic Textile Standard)