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The production of organic cotton can have detrimental environmental impacts due to the amount of water, land, chemicals, and emissions used to create it. [7] Approximately 2.6% of global water use can be attributed to the production of cotton. [7] Cotton cultivation is also responsible for about 11% of global pesticide consumption. [7]
Cotton covers 2.5% of the world's cultivated land but uses 10-16% of the world's pesticides (including herbicides, insecticides, and defoliants), more than any other single major crop. [4] [7] Environmental consequences of the elevated use of chemicals in the non-organic cotton growing methods include the following:
Cotton production uses 2.5% of the world's farmland. [31] Half of all textiles produced are made of the fiber. [35] Cotton is a water-intensive crop, requiring 3644 cubic meters of water to grow one ton of fiber, or 347 gallons per pound. [36] Growing cotton requires 25% of insecticides and 10-16% of pesticides of what is used globally every year.
“Inflation doesn’t just affect cotton, rice, and peanut farmers, it affects all farmers,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president of Governmental Affairs at Environmental Working Group.
The environmental impact of agriculture is the effect that different farming practices have on the ecosystems around them, and how those effects can be traced back to those practices. [1] The environmental impact of agriculture varies widely based on practices employed by farmers and by the scale of practice.
Despite technological progress, the cotton industry faces significant environmental challenges. Cotton is a water-intensive crop, and its cultivation often leads to water depletion in regions where water resources are already scarce. Additionally, cotton farming is associated with soil degradation, pesticide use, and loss of biodiversity.
During the middle 20th century, employment in cotton farming fell, as machines began to replace laborers and the South's rural labor force dwindled during the World Wars. Cotton remains a major export of the United States, with large farms in California, Arizona and the Deep South. [56]
Pollutants from agriculture greatly affect water quality and can be found in lakes, rivers, wetlands, estuaries, and groundwater. Pollutants from farming include sediments, nutrients, pathogens, pesticides, metals, and salts. [1] Animal agriculture has an outsized impact on pollutants that enter the environment.