*This post started as a compilation of information and my thoughts surrounding it, however as I found more and more information I believe in turned into more of a rant. Not the intent. Feel free to see through my opinions to the actual facts included and make up your own mind.
As a Vancouver based company trying to produce locally made and sustainable chef coats of organic cotton we’ve had little trouble finding an excellent local factory for sewing, even North American made biodegradable packaging to ship coats to customers in. However when it comes to the material that our products are made of we’ve hit a wall. In all of North America it would seem that it’s virtually impossible to find enough farms, let alone a mill and weaver, to produce a basic organic cotton fabric, that is unless we are willing to have thousands of yards produced and paid for up front. To top it all off even if we were to want to make a large amount of fabric finding enough North American grown organic cotton has become a problem. This is in part due to the fact that farmers can make more money sending it overseas where there are more factories and thus more demand.
In researching the subject I found information stating that there’s organic cotton farming taking place in Texas, California, New Mexico, and Missouri, however the only farmers I’ve been able to find are those who are members of the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative, and there are only 12 of them.
Cotton is generally thought of as being a natural fibre; it’s comfortable on the skin and breathable. Some things you may not know (I sure didn’t):
· Cotton is one of the largest crops grown in the world, it also uses the most chemicals.
· Conventional cotton farming uses over 25% of the world’s pesticides and over 10% of the worlds insecticides.
· To grow the cotton to make just one t-shirt 1/3 of a pound of pesticides and fertilizers are used. Organic cotton uses none.
· In 2008 70% of all cotton grown in the US was genetically modified.
So after all that you can begin to see why it’s important that we start to care not only about what we put in our bodies but also what we put on them. Having said that there’s more to think about than just how cotton is grown. In recent years we’ve learned more and more about the importance of local, how our carbon footprint is impacting the life of our planet. This includes things like our clothing. Even if something is made in the US or Canada I can almost guarantee that the fabric wasn’t, nor was the fibre. So the carbon footprint that you felt so good about reducing is exactly as it would have been had you bought the t-shirt made in China. Now that’s not to say there aren’t benefits to garments produced in North America, jobs are created, labour laws are enforced, and money is kept in our economy instead of someone else’s. But think of how many more jobs could be created if the use of local cotton was encouraged. Not only that, these would be jobs that would allow regular people to put food on the table for their families not white collar executives to buy another vacation property. (I feel the rant coming on...)
On a continent where people are talking more and more about the origin of their food, and where the word organic gives a product gold star status you would think that we would be all over using materials that can be grown and produced without ever having to see the inside of a cargo ship.
There is very little awareness of organic cotton growth in the US and Canada. Without consumer demand it’s difficult for farmers to gain access to high end markets in North America which causes them to have to sell their crops to be mixed in with organic crops grown overseas. Yes organic cotton production in the US has increased dramatically over the last few years, however even a 100% increase of very little still equals very little. It’s the farms that are currently farming using conventional practices that we need to influence, that we need to push to change course.
Newton’s first law of motion states that an object in motion stays in motion travelling at the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an outside force. Without an outside force (you and I) nothing is going to change.
Nothing will change unless change is demanded. Ask questions when you shop. Not just about organic but also about origin; what good is it if your organic cotton T-shirt has come from the other side of the world where it was woven in a mill that creates huge amounts of pollution, and then shipped to north America on a vessel that leaves a major carbon footprint. Something to think about.
