International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC)

It’s going to be a fantastic event! Photos coming soon.

To date, no myth about cotton has been as persistent, damaging, and flat-out wrong as the idea that cotton is a thirsty crop. It’s not. Stop it. That debate is over. But pesticide use has been a major thorn in cotton's side, too — so #TruthTuesday is here to set things right. ICAC Chief Scientist Dr Keshav Kranthi is among the most respected cotton researchers in the world, and his work on the last two issues of the Recorder is the key to finding out the #Truth about cotton and pesticides. You can read all about it for FREE (https://lnkd.in/dFzdSmB). Not all of this mis- and disinformation isn’t coming from cotton’s enemies; some wounds are self-inflicted, such as those "occasionally advocating for organic farming as a cure-all for perceived shortcomings in conventional cotton production systems," Dr Kranthi says. Cotton is often accused of being "the worst of the worst” when it comes to pesticide usage, but the reality is different. Cotton is right in the middle of the pack, according to most measures (see graphic below). Note that no one is saying, “Cotton uses no pesticides!” It does. But cotton is improving in its use of chemical insecticides, fungicides, herbicides etc — and will continue to do so. #Truth is about the way things are, not the way we want them to be (but we're working on it!). The reality is that of the 20 crops that use the most pesticides by active ingredients, cotton is ninth, between grapes/vines and citrus. The same ranking is true when it comes to pesticide use by volume: Cotton is ninth, between grapes/vines and citrus. Depending on what you measure, cotton sometimes does better, sometimes worse. For example, when you look at cotton's pesticide usage by country, you again see an extremely wide range of outcomes. The lies, myths and half-truths don’t benefit anyone — and saying cotton uses disproportionately high amounts of pesticides is just lazy and intellectually dishonest. It’s good advice about life in general, not just cotton: Speak #Truth, or don’t speak at all! Next week: Debunking lies about cotton and "highly hazardous" pesticides, which was the topic of the June 2024 ICA Recorder.

ICAC Executive Director Eric Trachtenberg, Chief Scientist Dr Keshav Kranthi, and Head of Textiles Kanwar Usman have their bags packed and are ready for an exciting week of discussions about the future of African cotton and textiles. Ten days is plenty of time to book a ticket and join them!

If there's one thing for sure, it's that the ICAC Secretariat doesn't let grass grow under their feet. For proof, let's check in on Executive Director Eric Trachtenberg and Economist Lorena Ruiz. They're on a deep-dive tour of the Brazilian cotton industry this week, which started at the Port of Santos and has now moved inland to the fields. Yesterday, the president of ABRAPA, Alexander Schenkel, invited Eric and Lorena to visit his farm, "Santa Rosa," in Campo Verde, Mato Grosso. They were able to visit the cotton fields and talked about the regen ag practices he is implementing, and how important it is to use biologicals as an alternative to chemical inputs when it comes to pest and disease control. The group also visited Mr Schenkel's ginning plant, called "Algodonera Brasil" — where things will start getting very busy in three weeks or so!   Yesterday's field trip ended at the Instituto Mato-Grossense do Algodao, where the project coordinator presented a broad overview of the research IMA is implementing. In the photo, from L to R: Fernando Rati, Algodao Brasil Alexander Schenkel, Abrapa President Eric Trachtenberg Lorena Ruiz Mario Sales, Data Intern, ICAC Márcio de Souza, IMA

#WorldCottonDay is coming fast, and there will be three “firsts” this year, so the next few #TruthTuesdays will look at those three differences that we’ll see in 2024. Today’s #Truth: When WCD kicks off in Cotonou, Benin, on October 6th, it will be the first time ever that the event is hosted by a country rather than an international organization. (There’s a sneak preview of another “first” in that statement, but we’ll leave that for next week.) In the past, the WCD celebration has been hosted by WTO, ITC, UNCTAD, FAO, and UNIDO — so this is the first time the partners conference will be held in a place that actually grows cotton! And Benin does that well. According to the ICAC Production Data Portal (https://lnkd.in/eanyRk7n), in 2023, the country: * Has the 10th-largest planted area at 573,000 ha * Is 13th in total production (241,000 tonnes) * Is 9th in cottonseed oil production (45,000 tonnes) * Has a low cost of production ($$21.30/ha) * Hosts about 201,000 cotton farmers, more than 10% of whom are women We look forward to seeing a huge crowd in Cotonou when the events kick off on October 6, but we need people who won’t be there to represent for cotton all over the world — including on social media platforms. But don’t worry, we can help. The WCD “Cotton for Good” logo is available in a dozen languages, and if we don’t have it in your preferred language, we’ll make it for you! There are also some WCD fact sheets that explain how it came about and why it's so important ... And if you’re wondering what you can do to support cotton in October, you can always go to the official WCD website (www.worldcottonday.com) and see what people and organizations have done in the past to celebrate the world’s most important natural fiber. 

It looks like a fantastic visit to Mato Grosso so far for ICAC Executive Director Eric Trachtenberg and Economist Lorena Ruiz. Brazil has done astonishing things with its cotton industry over the last decade, so there are few places in the world better-suited for a field visit. Enjoy your time with the Brazilians, who are legendarily good hosts, and have a caipirinha and some pao de quiejo for the rest of us!

Plus que 16 jours avant FICOTA ! #FICOTA2024 ! Qu'attendez-vous pour vous inscrire ? INSCRIVEZ-VOUS MAINTENANT à www.ficota.org pour assister à cet événement historique ! #KribiBeach #FICOTA2024 #cotondurable #ficota2024 #cottontextiles #industrieafricaine

Eric, Keshav, and Usman have their bags packed. It’s going to be a fantastic event!

There are so many good things to say about cotton, we could do positive #TruthTuesdays all week long! But sometimes, a lie is so odious and unfair that we use the #Truth to set things right — and that’s the case with today’s topic: the Aral Sea in Central Asia. Here’s the background … Back in the 1960s, the Aral Sea — a 68,000 square km body of water between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — was one of the largest inland seas in the world, teeming with fish, birds, and marine mammals. It was even a tourist hotspot for people looking for fun in the sun! But Soviet government officials decided to cultivate cotton and other crops around the Aral Sea, and that was a terrible, unfortunate decision. With rivers diverted to feed crops, the Aral Sea began to dry up, leaving behind a dusty wasteland. It is considered one of the greatest natural disasters in human history. This is probably the true origin of the “cotton is a thirsty crop” myth, which has been a thorn in cotton’s side for decades. But was it really cotton’s fault? The evidence is clear. Cotton is NOT the reason for the Aral Sea disaster. There are multiple reasons for this: 1) The Soviet Union drained up to 33 inches of water from the Aral Sea each year  2) Changes in population are important to understand the Aral Sea crisis. Between 1950 and 1988, the population of the Aral Sea basin grew dramatically, from 13.8 to 33.2 million people 3) The Soviet Union dug a total of 20,000 miles of canals, raised 45 dams, and laid out 80 reservoirs to service its cotton agro-business 4) Poor Soviet irrigation practices are the cause of the problem Soviet irrigation techniques at the time were horrifically inefficient, and their shoddily built canals lost between 25% and 75% of the diverted water to leaks and evaporation in the desert sands before it ever reached the crops. If cotton’s water requirements truly were to blame, this same type of ecological damage would have occurred over and over, everywhere cotton is grown. Furthermore, media outlets overlook the fact that cotton only accounted for 41% of the cultivated land around the Aral Sea. Rice, wheat and other grains accounted for 32% of the land, fruit crops 11%, vegetables 4%, and various other crops the remaining 12%. The devastation of the Aral Sea is not a story about cotton; it’s a story about human misjudgment and egregiously inefficient water management techniques. It’s time for the irresponsible media outlets to stop mistaking correlation for causation, no matter how attention-grabbing a cotton-focused headline might be. Here’s a video that lays it all out: https://lnkd.in/eFvZsT4Z #TruthAboutCotton #TruthTuesday

Well done, Usman — doing his part to forward the sustainability movement in textiles.