Cotton Sustainability

Sustainability of Cotton: A Message from the President & Chief Executive Officer

As President and CEO of Cotton Incorporated, I would like to personally welcome you to the Sustainability section of our web site. Your arrival here means that you share our ongoing commitment to environmental improvement. For more than 35 years, we have researched, developed and implemented practices to help cotton growers improve the quantity and quality of their yields, while decreasing their reliance on pesticides and irrigation. This work continues today, through more than 300 agricultural and agriculture-related research projects.

Over the past 25 years, projects such as these have helped cotton growers in the United States reduce their need for pesticides by 50%, cut back on their use of irrigated water by 45%; and produce substantially higher yields on virtually the same acreage. Despite these advances, confusion still remains about the environmental impact of cotton grown using modern, scientific methods. Because so much of the widely-circulated data on cotton and its environmental impact is outdated or outright inaccurate; we felt compelled to dedicate this section of our web site as a resource for the latest statistics, studies and commentary supporting the sustainability of cotton.

The majority of the facts and figures presented reflect U.S.-based research, but are representative of practices and results seen in most developed cotton-producing nations. Developed nations have the resources and responsibility to explore new and better ways of producing cotton. Once established, these innovations tend to be adopted on a global basis. It does not happen overnight, but the momentum of environmentally-friendly cotton is building around the world. We at Cotton Incorporated embrace this global point of view. We feel that what benefits one aspect of the industry benefits the greater whole. To us, environmental improvement is a cooperative effort beyond the borders of geography, politics or agricultural methodology.

I invite you to study the information collected here, to see for yourself the environmental gains made and being made in the cotton industry.

Sincerely,

J. Berrye Worsham