|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While clothing crops pollute the environment, we are slowly adopting healthier alternatives, reports Iva Cheung
When you hear the term “organic,” odds are that you’ll probably think of food rather than clothing. However, the cultivation of natural fibres – cotton in particular – is arguably the most pesticide-intensive sector of the agricultural industry. Conventional cotton farming is responsible for 10 per cent of pesticide use and 25 per cent of insecticide use worldwide, due to the crop’s need for defense against a host of natural enemies, including the destructive boll weevil, the cotton bollworm, and the aphid.
The organic fibre market is growing, but not as quickly as organic foods, which have found their way from a few isolated shops to mainstream supermarkets within the past couple of years. Finding retailers of organic cotton, wool, or flax linen in the Lower Mainland still requires considerable effort. This disparity between the availability of organic fibres and organic foods is likely due to the fact that the connection between the field and the final product is far less tangible for fibres; after all, processed cotton fabrics look virtually nothing like the harvested raw crop. It’s also much easier to overlook or trivialize the use of chemical agents on fibre fields simply because we don’t have to worry about ingesting them, although that is in itself a misguided perception. In fact, cottonseed and linseed oils are used frequently in processed foods, in addition to soaps and other beauty products, and cotton gin by-products are used as animal feed. What’s sprayed on the fibre fields does eventually end up in the food we eat.
Evidently, however, the concern over organic versus conventionally grown fibres lies not in the potential of toxic residues in the final consumer products. Rather, it’s in the ecological impact of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers being introduced into the environment. There are, of course, the obvious consequences of pesticide use: death to wildlife and illnesses ranging from respiratory and skin problems to infertility and cancers in farm workers and local residents. Beyond these effects, however, the abuse of chemical insecticides on cotton and flax fields has on several occasions ironically led to the very effect the chemicals were trying to prevent.
For instance, throughout the United States and in Nicaragua, the use of insecticides in an effort to eradicate the boll weevil inadvertently eliminated a number of species of beneficial insects which help to keep the number of pests under check. This led to an explosion in the population of pests generally considered more minor, including the aphid, which ravaged cotton and many food crops. In Uzbekistan, irresponsible irrigation and fertilization have left once thriving cotton and linen fields completely barren, and incapable of supporting crops of any kind.
To cut down on the amounts of herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers used, many conventional cotton farmers have turned to transgenic cotton. As a consequence, an estimated 50 per cent of North American cotton is genetically modified, which is just as unacceptable an alternative as pesticide-sprayed fibres to most organically-minded consumers.
Certified Organic farms can neither use GMOs nor synthetic chemical agents. Organic cotton and linen farmers are forced to rely on crop rotations and legume cover crops such as fava beans to enrich the soil with nitrogen, and on distraction crops such as corn to attract pests away from the developing cotton and linen. Organic cultivators have to weed their fields manually, use manure as fertilizer, and make use of beneficial insects such as the ladybug or Catolaccus grandus to control aphid and weevil populations. Despite these measures, their final yields are still generally lower than conventionally cultivated cotton fields, due to the added investment of land and labour resources.
Following harvest, the organic crop is processed separately from conventionally grown fibres, to avoid contamination. The machines used to gin, clean and spin cotton have to be entirely cleaned out before organic cotton can be sent through, and this added effort, compounded with decreased yields, translates to added costs for the consumer, which is not unfamiliar to most shoppers who buy organic. The increase, however, is only slight. At Mountain Equipment Co-op, for instance, a 100 per cent organic t-shirt is available for a mere $13.
Those suffering the most in the organic market, then, are the cultivators in the midst of converting their farms from conventional to Certified Organic, which entails a lengthy process that ends in certification only after three years. During that transitional period, farmers have to bear the burden of losing a considerable part of their investment, since they are forced to farm organically, but can only sell their products at the lower prices of conventional crops. The key to encouraging more farmers to turn organic might be to generate a niche market of transitional cotton and linen, and to steer consumption towards garments made from a blend of organic and conventional fibres.
Yet, even when we are prepared to face the additional costs in order to buy organic fibres, finding them presents another roadblock. Despite a handful of large corporations such as Nike and Patagonia committing to blending organic cotton into their merchandise, most manufacturers haven’t followed suit. Although it’s not too hard to buy organic cotton on-line, there appear to be frustratingly few shops retailing organic cotton clothes and accessories in the Lower Mainland. The few that I did manage to find in the course of my research are listed below. Organic linen is virtually impossible to find, and organic wool, sheared from sheep which have grazed only in chemical-free fields and which haven’t been fed antibiotics, seems the most elusive of all.
Hemp, on the other hand, though politically provocative, is a viable alternative to all three, since it produces high yields and a variety of useful peripheral by-products, including soap, paper and even plastic, with absolutely no help from pesticides or fertilizers. Clothing and accessories produced from industrial THC-free hemp is slowly growing in both popularity and availability.
Of course, cultivating organic fibres is merely the beginning. The responsibility falls upon the conscientious consumer to follow the chain of production all the way to the final product to make sure that the fibre has been processed in a way that doesn’t undermine all of the effort that went into producing the organic crop. Ethical ginning, spinning and weaving, and environmentally friendly bleaching and dyeing are examples of features that a Certified Organic garment might not guarantee. However, choosing organic over conventional fibres is a significant first step to encouraging environmentally responsible and sustainable agricultural practices that will hopefully see organic fibres move from the fringe to the mainstream much like their edible counterparts.
Iva Cheung is a Vancouver-based freelance writer who focuses on community, health, and environmental issues.
 Top
|
|
|
|
|
|
