29
Aug
Organic Cotton Initiative in Pakistan Shines a Light on Hazards and Alternatives in Cotton Production
(Beyond Pesticides, August 29, 2024) The Center for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) earned the 2024 Innovators Award from The Better Cotton Initiative (Better Cotton) for its leadership in developing capacity and expansion of organic standards and practices in the Pakistani cotton sector, according to a press release by Better Cotton. Given the millions of pounds of some of the most toxic chemicals used to produce cotton, and Pakistan being an exporter of $3.5 billion worth of cotton (2021), including $240 million to the U.S. (2022), cotton production is a worldwide contamination problem. The U.S. is currently the fourth largest cotton producer (domestic and export) and the largest cotton exporter in the world, accounting for 30% of all cotton produced, valued at $5.7 billion (2021). The farm value of U.S. organic cotton is $35.55 million (2021). According to the Organic Trade Association, organic cotton comprises approximately 0.95% of global cotton production.”
“CABI, for its multifaceted work in Pakistan which has included the creation of a national organic agriculture policy for Pakistan that is currently being assessed by the country’s Ministry of Food Security and Research,” the release goes on to discuss the implications of the years-long initiative. “If approved, the policy is expected to strengthen and build bridges between stakeholders working to promote sustainability.”
Cotton production is the third most chemical-intensive crop in the United States after corn (at least 166 million pounds applied in 2021) and soybeans (at least 138.9 million pounds applied in 2023), with at least 17.2 million pounds of herbicides applied to cotton acres in 2021. The United States and other nations continue to rely on toxic petrochemical-based pesticides, including paraquat, dicamba, and glyphosate-based herbicides in the U.S., as well as organophosphate, pyrethroid, and neonicotinoid insecticides. Advocates continue to push for regenerative organic principles to move beyond toxic pesticides for all crops and support the well-being of farmworkers, farmers, and consumers.
CABI has engaged in various projects to promote the development of organic cotton production in Pakistan, including reports surveying progress, obstacles, and opportunities in the sector as well as engagement with the government, including the Ministry of National Food Security and Research. In a 2021 working paper, Pakistan National Organic Cotton Policy GAP Analysis, CABI established the following recommendations to proliferate organic cotton capacity:
- “Develop an organic cotton policy with engagement of relevant stakeholders/working groups.
- Establish an organic cotton premium (as per the final price of textile-sector products at national and international markets) to encourage and promote organic cotton farming.
- Establish organic cotton seed multiplication programmes, with a focus on immediate, medium-term, and long-term approaches that also engage research institutes, seed companies, FSC&RD [Federal Seed Certification and Registration Department], farming communities, etc.
- Provide free laboratory testing facilities for cotton seed and organic cotton samples of farmer’s fields.
- Establish a national organic certification system for organic cotton textile products.
- Carry out an ethnobotanical survey to identify local plant varieties that can be used as raw materials in the preparation of biopesticides, and develop a supply chain of medicinal plants and their products for starting income generation activities.
- Establish a bio-inputs supply chain for effective control of organic cotton insect, pests and diseases.
- Create an organic cotton-specialised credit facility for organic cotton farmers that requires farmers to provide minimum amounts of formal documentation.
- Include organic cotton regions in the government’s priority development programme.
- Promote organic cotton at identified hotspots in Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan.
- Include youth, especially women, in organic agriculture and organic cotton and bioinput businesses for job creation and enterprise development in the region.”
This report went on to identify existential challenges to growing the industry, including limited non-genetically engineered cotton seed availability (reportedly upwards of 90% of cotton seed is GE) primarily due to cross-contamination with Bacilus thuringiensis (Bt) seed varieties due to lack of supply. U.S. researchers first found Bt resistance in cotton production as early as 2008, just five years after deployment of GE cottonseeds. (See Daily News here for further information on Bt resistance.) Also, the CABI report identified many research institutes and government agencies, their statutory mandates relating to biosafety, certification, and cotton, and their potential roles in implementing the recommendations.
Earlier this year, one of those recommendations came to fruition after CABI organized and facilitated a review and validation workshop with the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, textile industry leaders, farmers, testing laboratories, government agencies, researchers, and additional stakeholders to push forward discussions on the eventual proposal for regulations on domestic organic standards for cotton to be finalized later this year. CABI has also facilitated the growth of organic cotton in the province of Balochistan, developing the first draft of what will become provincial and national organic standards, in addition to the publication of three organic training manuals for farmers and training workshops on applicable bio-inputs and connecting with compliant suppliers. The long-term goal is to create a domestic supply of non-GE seeds produced by Balochistan farmers who can then sell to growers in Punjab and Sindh (most of the national cotton stock is produced in these two provinces).
Pakistan is the fifth largest producer of cotton worldwide, making up 6% of total production amounting to 6.7 million bales produced in the 2023/2024 season according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service. CABI secured funding from Better Cotton back in 2014 to embark on a decade-long initiative to promote the “Better Cotton Standard System” in high-producing provinces; however, the goal has moved to be more specific and establish organic-certified cotton as the baseline for ethical, climate-resilient production in a national industry that continues to lose hundreds of millions of dollars each year due to “poor traditional agricultural practices.”
The Pakistan Credit Rating Agency attributes approximately 69% of total domestic agricultural pesticide use to cotton. Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, a research center for Punjab province, estimates “[a]bout 1.3 million out of 5 million farmers cultivate cotton on an area of 6.0 million acres, covering 15% of cultivated area in the country.” Ongoing research, including a report published in Scientific Reports in June 2024 written by agricultural researchers at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, identified “excessive use of adulterated and expensive pesticides” as a driving contributor “to the decline in cotton production.” Punjab-based farmers interviewed in this study express frustration at the status quo of rampant pesticide use without quantifying true costs and benefits: “Farmers are being manipulated from both ends. On the one hand, the cost of pesticides is very high, and on the other hand, the results of the pesticides are poor. More importantly, farmers have to repeat the sprays, encountering the fear of crop yield loss by investing a lot of money in pesticides.” Pakistan cotton production has shrunk by nearly 61 percent and total land area cut by 25 percent between 2015 and 2021 due to climate change and “inaccessibility to the latest generations of GE cottonseed,” according to a USDA Foreign Agricultural Service report.
There are also farmworker and gender injustice concerns surrounding the conventional agricultural sectors, including in major cotton-producing provinces such as Sindh. In 2019, the provincial government passed the Sindh Women Agriculture Workers Act to “recognize the right of women workers to have a written contract, minimum wage, social security, and welfare benefits including for child health, maternity leave, and access to government subsidies and credit,” following up on analysis by Human Rights Watch and a 2018 report by UN Women finding that “67 percent of Pakistani women in the labor force work in agriculture and 60 percent of their work is unpaid.” Five years after the passage of this law, continued violations have prompted the Sindh Human Rights Commission to facilitate discussions on enforcing this labor law earlier this year in March. Given the failure of chemical-intensive agriculture to protect farmworkers, particularly women farmworkers, from labor violations, advocates emphasize the importance of organic systems that center such protections in their roots, as does CABI in its analysis of growing organic cotton.
The U.S. produces over 12 million bales of cotton in the past crop season. It is mainly grown in Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Organic cotton production, meanwhile, is significantly lower at 47,737 bales produced predominantly in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and North Carolina in 2021. Of these 75 organic cotton farms, 63 are based in Texas. Cotton growers in this state, both organic and conventional, have faced challenges to production based on pesticide resistance and lack of viable, and compliant inputs, respectively. In 2014, the Texas Department of Agriculture requested that EPA issue an exemption to permit conventional farmers to spray fields with propazine to control pigweed, an invasive plant that had grown increasingly resistant to glyphosate. (The EPA denied their request).
Despite court rulings that “[U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] EPA did not adequately consider adverse effects from ‘over-the-top’ dicamba in approving the conditional registration,” the chemical is one of the predominant herbicides used in conventional cotton production. See Beyond Pesticides’ full comments to EPA on the pesticide production registration for new dicamba-tolerant cotton and soybeans to learn more about the environmental and public health issues of dicamba, as well as regulatory failure from the EPA.
There is a slew of scientific literature documenting numerous adverse health effects to exposure from commonly used pesticides in the chemical-intensive cotton sector. The presence of dicamba and 2,4-D in pregnant women in Midwest states has increased significantly in the last decade based on research facilitated by the Heartland Health Research Alliance. Dicamba has also been linked to neurotoxicity, birth defects, and kidney and liver damage, not to mention posing harm to birds, fish, and other aquatic organisms, according to various peer-reviewed studies identified in the Gateway on Pesticide Hazards and Safe Pest Management. Paraquat has been linked to the rise in mental health/suicidal ideation among farmworkers and increased rates of neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s, among other chronic health issues. The California legislature is considering prohibiting the use of paraquat for most uses while the EPA is undergoing a final registration review of paraquat with comments due by January 2025. There are proven alternatives to pest management that move beyond toxic chemical dependance, including crop diversification/intercropping, cover crops (proven especially effective for cotton), and other practices that are elements of organic land management systems.
Advocates across the nation welcome EPA’s unprecedented action earlier this month to use its emergency suspension authority, as permitted by its statutory mandate under Federal Insecticide, Rodenticide, and Fungicide Act (FIFRA), to pull Dachtal/DCPA off the market. This is the type of action that enables EPA to stand up and adequately address the known adverse health and ecological effects of registered pesticide products despite viable alternatives built on organic principles.
With greater recognition of the hazards associated with chemical-intensive cotton production, and more stringent EPA implementation of laws restricting pesticides, the growth of organic is understood to be increasingly important, but still a fraction of a huge market. The Textile Exchange (which bases certified organic data on various certifiers and the USDA National Organic Program) estimates that 1.4% of all cotton grown is within “organic and in-conversion land” in its 2021 report on organic cotton markets.
While eliminating the toxic pesticides, organic cotton processing is still reliant on the toxic hydrogen chloride to de-lint cotton seeds before planting. Under the banner of “continuous improvement,” Beyond Pesticides has called for more urgency in supporting research on alternatives that are compatible with organic. “It is our understanding, from conversations with a representative of the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative, that organic cotton growers in the U.S. currently do not have a lot of choice about how their seed is prepared for planting,” says Terry Shistar, Ph.D., Board of Directors at Beyond Pesticides. See Beyond Pesticides’ full NOSB comments on relisting hydrogen chloride to support organic cotton growers and the call for less toxic alternatives.
See Pesticide-Induced Disease Database and Gateway on Pesticide Hazards and Safe Pest Management to access peer-reviewed, independent scientific literature on the human and environmental health impacts of toxic pesticides used in cotton production. Stay tuned for more information on the Fall 2024 NOSB public meetings on Keeping Organic Strong.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Source: Better Cotton
