U.S Cotton Industry Puts Resources for Continuous Improvement at Growers' Fingertips

Cotton Incorporated and other U.S. industry organizations regularly find new ways to support growers when it comes to environmental sustainability as well as business resilience. As market demand for high-quality, sustainably produced cotton continues to rise, these efforts help U.S. farmers maintain a supply to match.

One important source of support, the Cotton Cultivated website, just received a significant update. This website connects researchers, growers and their crop advisors with fresh, relevant resources on topics such as varied cover crops, water use efficiency, harvesting equipment and market outlooks.

New research is constantly generating new data that leads to new practices and tools. However, not everything applies to every farmer, and numerous factors go into every farming decision. Cotton Cultivated helps remove barriers to adopting sustainable improvements by making it easier to stay up to date on best practices – and choose the right ones for specific circumstances.

The site “cultivates” hundreds of cutting-edge tools, decision aids and reports. Each one has been carefully categorized so that growers can quickly pinpoint the information they need to make improvements on their farm. Website users can search one or more of the following categories:

• Production – insights related to specific aspects of cotton production, including soil, nutrients, water, insects, diseases, weeds, plant breeding, variety selection and ginning.
• Market – regular updates on the ever-changing cotton market, including cotton and cottonseed prices, macroeconomic trends and fiber quality. This category also includes business development tools to help growers set their farms up for financial resilience.
• Region – sorts information that applies to the specific regions of the U.S. Cotton Belt, including the Far West, Midsouth, Southeast and Southwest.
• Season – resources that speak to the challenges of solutions of specific seasons on the farm, including Preparing, Planting, Growing and Harvesting.

Our Cotton LEADS? partners may notice one particular feature of the Cotton Cultivated site: there is no single page called “sustainable cotton farming.” This is by design. Sustainability touches on every decision U.S. growers and their advisors make. It is embedded in the growers’ desire to continually improve land stewardship, resource efficiency and crop yield – and leave a healthy farm for their descendants.