Organic Food 101

Lesson 2: Getting to Know Your Organic Farmer

Organic Cotton

Some years ago I worked at a sawmill in rural South Carolina. After my shift was over I was driving home and came across a cotton field. The beautiful white bolls were full and white and so I decided to do a little trespassing and pick my wife a cotton boll bouquet. I shouldn't really have gone into that farmer's field without asking. But I did. I just waded into that beautiful cotton.

When I was amidst the plants I noticed a stink. And then I looked at the plants. They were dripping with an oily substance that was the source of the smell. I can't be positive, because I don't know much about cotton production, but I believe the farmer had just sprayed the field with an herbicide to kill the foliage on those plants. That's what is done with potatoes to make them easier to harvest. I left that field without my bouquet and with the stink of that stuff on my clothes and in my nose.

"While Cotton Incorporated has trademarked the phrase "fabric of our lives" in an effort to convince people that cotton is wholesome and naturally produced, growers blanket the delicate plants with insecticides, herbicides, miticides, and defoliants prior to harvest - as many as thirty times per season in some extreme cases. Perhaps a more apt name for King Cotton is "King Chemical," as it uses large amounts of some of the deadliest pesticides known. Worldwide, 25 percent of all insecticides and 10 percent of all pesticides are applied to cotton fields," reports Andrew Kimbrell in the book Fatal Harvest.

Kimbrell's use of the term pesticide is a little sloppy and, in my mind, brings into question the precision of his numbers. There is little doubt, however, that cotton is a major consumer of agricultural chemicals. Besides creating health threats for farmers and consumers (trespassers too!) the substantial use of chemicals harms the over all environment.

"The Sustainable Cotton Project, in Oroville, California, estimates that one third of a pound of fertilizer is used to produce every pound of cotton. Synthetic fertilizers have been found to contaminate drinking wells in farm communities and pose other long-term threats to farmland," Kimbrell, who accurately contends extensive use of pesticides is linked to extensive use of synthetic fertilizer, continues in his chapter on cotton.

Organically produced cotton is increasingly becoming a sensible alternative to industrially produced cotton. Kimbrell, when he wrote in 2002, estimated that organic cotton in the United States made up ten percent of all cotton grown in the US. Acreage in the European Union is increasing. So too is that of India where cotton is one of the major commercial crops.

Due to excessive use of fertilizers and insecticides, all the elements of the agro-eco system gets polluted by the conventional method. Organic cotton production relies on non-chemical inputs and will decrease pollution hazards," writes A. T.P. RAJENDRAN in an article on organic cotton at the website, www.indiaagronet.com, (see bibliography). "Pesticide residues in (cotton) fibre may cause carcinogenic damage to users. The use of bio-rational products and biocontrol agents for pest management in organic farming will cause no such effects."

Rajendran goes on to say water discharged from cotton processing plants has not only caused problems to man, cattle and fish in the rivers and canals, but yields of cotton are reported to be affected due to polluted water that is used for irrigation. He also notes that organic farming will likely be more profitable for India's already cash strapped farmers.

"Modern production technology has lowered the cost-benefit ratio of cotton production. Farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra etc. are reported to have committed suicide due to escalation of production cost without occurring commensurate profit from cotton cultivation. On the other hand, organic farming creates rural employments and uses of on-farm resources to make it more cost-effective," he writes.

With the memory of the smell of the herbicide from the South Carolina cotton fields still with me, and with the idea that industrial cotton farming kills people I've chosen to wear organic cotton during the day and to sleep on it at night. It's more expensive but worth the money.

  1  2  3  4