The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) is the creator of the Better Cotton Standard System, one of the most exciting things in the world of sustainable textiles.
What the Better Cotton Standard System represents is nothing less than a holistic approach to establishing sustainable cotton production along the three crucial dimensions of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic.
The key to this program is the BCI’s 7 Principles, which collectively work together to create sustainable cotton.
1. Minimize the Harmful Impact of Crop Protection Practices
Because the cotton plant is attractive to a wide range of pests, farmers must adopt crop protection practices to ensure a harvest. There are many different crop protection practices, from plant breeding and cultivar selection to mechanical techniques to the application of pesticides, both natural and synthetic.
The crop protection practices that have caused the most harm are those pertaining to the use of synthetic pesticides. These pesticides have had devastating ecological impacts, as well as adversely affecting human health.
The BCI’s solution is Integrated Pest Management (IPM), an ecosystem-based strategy that focuses on the use of a variety of techniques to minimize the impact of pests.
2. Promote Water Stewardship
Cotton is known for being a thirsty crop, although a relevant factor here is the geography and climate. Cotton is relatively drought tolerant, but some agricultural practices are also enormously wasteful of water.
The BCI promotes water stewardship by helping farmers to develop water stewardship plans. These plans start with mapping and understanding the water resources. They also include the management of soil moisture and water quality. The BCI promotes the use of efficient irrigation practices to optimize water productivity and promotes management of water quality.
3. Conserve Soil Health
Soil erosion and misuse is an issue for cotton farmers as it is for farmers generally. A number of factors are relevant here, including the nature and type of the soils, vegetation cover, and agricultural management practices. Because agriculture is generally preceded by the clearing of native vegetation, and because it disturbs the soil, soil erosion is an issue not only with cotton but also with many other crops.
BCI promotes healthy soil management to minimize erosion. BCI soil health plans identify and analyze soil types and are customized to ensure the maintenance of soil structure and fertility.
4. Promote Biodiversity
It is typical for cotton farmers to clear the land used for production, eliminating biodiversity. This is much in keeping with conventional methods applied to other crops: growing a crop in an area is typically a tremendous hit for the biodiversity of that area. However, sustainable practices call for biodiversity to be conserved where possible and to the degree possible.
BCI supports biodiversity management to promote biodiversity as well as conserve it. The integrated pest management plans, in particular, help to conserve beneficial insects. Another aspect of BCI plans is identifying and restoring degraded areas. There is also a focus on protecting riparian areas.
5. Care for and Preserve Fiber Quality
Fiber quality is an issue for all cotton farmers. The inherent characteristics of cotton fiber, the level of trash, and the level of contamination, all matter a great deal for assessing cotton quality. BCI helps farmers to ensure fiber quality. It is vitally important for sustainable cotton to be of high quality so that it can command competitive prices, thus providing farmers and agricultural laborers with a living wage.
For this reason, BCI helps farmers to harvest, manage, and store seed cotton in order to minimize trash, contamination, and damage. Farmers also learn how to adopt management practices that promote fiber quality: choosing the right cultivars, planting dates, ensuring nutrition, effective irrigation management, and dealing with diseases, insects, and weeds.
6. Decent Work
There are many humanitarian and social challenges associated with the conventional production of cotton. For example, in much of the Global South, it is common for women and children to do a great deal of work. Many of them work under conditions that offer them few opportunities: they must perform back-breaking labor for low wages. Women in particular often earn less than men for the same work or are employed in lower-paying tasks. Children who work in cotton fields are often denied access to education.
Forced or bonded labor is another issue. In past centuries, cotton was grown with slave labor; today in some parts of the Global South, it is grown with debt-bonded labor. Because cotton is labor-intensive, there have long been incentives for unscrupulous exploitation of laborers who have few other options.
In order to address these challenges, BCI has worked to establish fundamental principles and rights, while promoting access to opportunity. Social protection and social security are fundamental principles of BCI’s approach to sustainable cotton.
7. Effective Management
The seventh principle is effective management. BCI principles address a wide range of environmental, social, and economic challenges, but this only makes effective management the most important one. BCI promotes several solutions through an effective management system that helps producers to adhere to the other six production principles.
The first solution is the development and implementation of a continuous improvement plan. Such a plan, helps farmers work on key issues for sustainability.
Second, BCI also helps farmers to evaluate the effectiveness of training and capacity-building work, and to propose improvements to these.
Third, BCI helps farmers set up data management systems to facilitate the management of data necessary for sustainable cotton.
And fourth, BCI helps farmers identify key sustainability issues that create risks for compliance with core indicators for sustainable cotton.
BCI and the Future of Sustainable Cotton
Cotton has long posed significant issues for sustainability, but a powerful movement to change that is afoot. BCI’s 7 principles for sustainable cotton help farmers to achieve cotton agriculture in a way that is ecologically, socially, and economically responsible. They do this by providing a comprehensive framework, one that suppliers and consumers can trust.