To help its members meet their current needs while making the world a better place for future generations, the U.S. cotton industry is setting goals aimed to build upon the strong environmental gains already achieved over the past 30 years.
“Our industry wants to be the supplier of choice for those who are committed to only buying cotton that is produced with sustainable and responsible environmental, safety and labor practices,” said National Cotton Council Chairman Ronnie Lee, a Georgia cotton producer. “That is the objective that was set by the Council’s COTTON USA Sustainability Task Force.”
Task Force Chairman Ted Schneider, a Louisiana cotton producer, said the actual sustainability resolution that the Council adopted earlier this year called for the creation of the sustainability task force and specified that it collaborate with U.S. cotton industry associations “on developing industry-wide goals for measurable continual improvements in environmental stewardship, farm productivity, and resource efficiency such as land, water, air, input, and energy use.”
Schneider said that among the specific goals being pursued by 2025 are:
- Reducing by 13% the amount of land needed to produce a pound of cotton fiber;
- Reducing soil loss by 50%, in balance with new soil formation;
- Increasing water use efficiency (more fiber per gallon) by 18%;
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 39%;
- Increasing soil carbon in fields by 30%;
- Reducing energy to produce seed cotton and ginned lint by 15%.
“U.S. cotton growers have achieved significant environmental gains over the past three decades,” explains Schneider. “The goals are meant to continue that trend and to reinvigorate efforts through the setting of realistic targeted reductions.”