Another Good Reason to Go with Organic Cotton

Since the advent of organic cotton so many reports have attested to the benefits of purchasing this fabric. Not only is it safe to people’s skin but it is also lauded by environmentalists because of how environmentally safe this material is. Experts have said that textile companies are contributing regularly to the pollution of our oceans all because the fabric they use has micro-plastics in them that often end up in our seas and oceans.

That is why environmentalists have been advocating the use of more organic cotton because it has zero micro-plastics in it and there are no chemicals that were used to cultivate this crop making it one of the safest materials in the world. Now there’s another reason why people should start switching to buying organic cotton clothes and it’s more of a humanitarian aid than anything else.

Protecting the farmers

In cultivating traditional cotton, farmers often have to purchase large amounts of pesticides because this crop is one of the most prone to being plagued by pests. According to EcoWatch, GMO cotton crop only account for 2.5 percent of the crops in the whole world but the amount of pesticides that farmers use takes up 25 percent of the global use of pesticides.

This makes traditional cotton crops to be the most toxic crop in the world, which makes it unsafe for the farmers who cultivate it as well as the land they put it on. According to experts, the most used ingredient in pesticides in traditional cotton crops is Glyphosate, which has been linked with diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome. But with organic cotton hardly any chemicals are used to cultivate these crops guaranteeing that the farmers who grow these crops are safe from any harsh materials.

Avoiding debt build-up

As mentioned earlier, most traditional cotton farmers need large amounts of pesticides and insecticides to protect their crops but not all of these farmers have ample funds to purchase all the chemicals they need. They take out huge loans to purchase all the chemicals they need to protect their crops. Now, this is not to say that organic cotton farming is less costly as compared to traditional cotton farming. The fact is organic cotton farming is quite expensive as well even though it rarely uses chemicals and often resort to natural means to cultivate its crops. But the advantage of organic cotton farming over traditional farming is that farmers can cultivate other crops alongside their primary crop giving them another opportunity to profit with another crop.

Diversifying crops

Another advantage with organic cotton is that farmers can use their land for other food crops. The problem with traditional cotton crops is that as mentioned earlier is that they are highly prone to pests. So to counter that, farmers would have to use large amounts of pesticides to protect their crops. The pesticides and insecticides that these farmers use would often make the soil toxic for other plants. But with organic cotton, farmers can plant other food crops in their soil alongside their primary crops. In organic cotton farming the lack of harsh chemicals in the soil means that it is still good for cultivating other plants.

So aside from organic cotton crops, farmers can grow other plants to feed their selves. According to a research conducted by Organic Exchange in Tanzania, the organic cotton farmers there were able to grow six food crops alongside their cotton crops and they were able to consume 30 to 80 percent of those food crops. So the propagation of organic cotton farming will not only benefit the environment and the consumers, especially those with highly sensitive skin, but it will also help the farmers. Organic cotton farming keeps the farmers safe from harsh chemicals. It also keeps them from building up debt because the minimized use of chemicals means that these farmers wouldn’t have to break the bank just to get the equipment they need to grow their crops.