The industry of cotton is one of supply chains oldest in history and today constitutes a multi-faceted business whose spin-offs in the year 2020 it guaranteed sustenance for well 1 billion peopleincluded 100 million small farmers owners of small plots of land. However, in the shadow of these numbers there are other less well-known but equally important aspects, such as fight without quarter among the main producing countries, eager to conquer new market shares, and cultivation and harvesting practices that have produced authentic products environmental disasters and it exploitation of entire populations.
Origins and brief history of the cotton industry
Cotton is a textile fiber obtained from the wadding that wraps the seeds of shrubby plants of the genus Gossypium. In reality there are several species of plants of this genus that produce cotton, however over the course of history only four have been domesticated and subsequently cultivated commercially:
- Gossypium hirsutum – native to Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean and southern Florida;
- Gossypium barbadense – native to the tropical regions of South America;
- Gossypium arboreum – native to the Indian subcontinent area;
- Gossypium herbaceum – native to southern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
For this reason there is no single one place of origin of cotton (unlike the case of coffeefor example) but rather a set of places in which a certain number of civilizations distinct from each other have begun domestication.
Exactly as has happened to other plant and animal species domesticated by humans for their sustenance and/or economic activities, throughout history the aforementioned shrubby plants have been the subject of a selection process that has favored the emergence of the most productive, but it was only the invention of cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 (then patented on 14 March 1794) to make the process of processing the raw material for industrial purposes easier (First Industrial Revolution). Although it has accompanied the development of humanity since ancient times, only in a relatively recent period of time has cotton become a widely consumed product.
The main cotton producing countries
According to data for the year 2022the total production of cotton by the 21 main producing countries it amounted to almost 70 million tons of raw material. It is important to note that these producers represent a heterogeneous group that sees the presence of great Asian powers (such as China, India and Pakistan), but also the United States of Americaalmost all of them the former Muslim republics of the Soviet Union (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan), Latin American powers on the rise (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina) and even an important group of countries in theFrancophone Africa (Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Ivory Coast, Cameroon).
In general, the factors that most influence cotton cultivation are climatic and environmental in nature. There ideal temperature in fact it is around for the cultivation of cotton below 25 °C. In a range between 25 and 35 °C, however, mold can develop, while at a temperature of 0 °C cotton freezes. Another strongly influencing element is the water demand so much so that, on average, for the production of 1kg of cotton are necessary between 8,000 and 10,000 liters of water while in particularly dry areas the quantity even increases to 22,500 litres.
The environmental and social impact of cotton
Although the related cotton industry guarantees the livelihood of over 1 billion people (2020 data), very often in developing countries workers in the sector receive very low compensation for the work they perform. Cotton’s dependence on the supply of large quantities of water also risks negatively impact the availability of blue gold for the needs of the population.
Not only that: the development of cotton crops was the basis of one of the worst ecological disasters of history, when Soviet leaders they decided to hijack huge volumes of water from the courses of Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers leading to drying up of the Aral Sea.
Beyond its environmental impact, the cotton industry has repeatedly been blamed for causing the “reduction into slavery” of entire populations, “forced” to work on the cotton harvest in conditions bordering on exploitation. Very specific accusations in this sense (including that of exploitation of child labor) have been made against the authorities of the Former Soviet states of Central Asiaespecially theUzbekistan and the Turkmenistan.
Lastly, starting from the early 2000s, some practices of unfair competition undertaken by United States of America they would have met firm opposition, especially at headquarters WTO (World Trade Organization), by the Brazil and a group of named African producers “Cotton-4” (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali) who collectively denounced the US “modus operandi”, which in their opinion was incorrect subsidize its cotton industry thus preventing other competitors from gaining vital market shares to boost their economic development.
