Organic Cotton and Rethinking Rice

In 2019, I was lucky enough to take a trip to Dhar in India to learn more about organic cotton production.  To see how the cotton is grown for Turtle Bags,  more importantly, to find out what organic cotton means to those who were growing it.

You can see this journey and what we found on our short video Cottoning ON…  One of the biggest takeaways was, of course, that it was all about the soil.  Organically farmed soil is more able to retain water, increasing water efficiency but it was also able to hold the carbon (up to 94% more).

Organic cotton farming through improving the soil, continues to improve the lives and communities of cotton farmers.

Our challenge at Turtle Bags, and in the textile world, is to take the view of  cotton which has forever been understood to be the “natural fabric of choice”.  And challenge this myth. Cotton, grown conventionally is one of the most polluting crops in the world!

Cotton only becomes the natural fabric choice if its grown organically; organic cotton produces up to 94% less carbon, and does not use artificial pesticides or fertilizers.

With the climate crisis upon us, cotton is not the only crop which is seeing radical changes in its production.  The way rice is grown is also being reviewed. As ever, it’s a complex picture, conventional rice growing is not only enormously challenged by climate change but also creates challenges to our climate.

RICE: What’s not to love about that wonderfully comforting food?

Well, it turns out there are costs to all too innocent looking rice.

After beef, rice has the highest global emissions of any food.  Given the scale of rice production across the globe: 1 billion people derive their livlihood from rice, then tweaks in farming techniques of rice can, of course, have phenomenal repercussions.

Rice needs to have wet feet to grow.  So rice fields are kept wet through the year.  The downside of this is that the microbes which live in the water are producing methane.  10-15 % of manmade methane is from flooded rice fields.  If you can control the amount of flooding then you can can control the amount of methane produced.  If the rice fields are not continuously wet then soil is not continuously anaerobic and there is a radical reduction in amount of methane produced and an improvement in the soil structure.

So, a farming method that uses less water, produces less methane and is even higher yielding is great news for the planet and great news for rice farmers.

This is the approach that the folk of Nice Rice have sought out for their rice. Their rice is produced with 49% less emissions compared to conventional rice and they are saving a massive 3,000 l of water per kilo of rice.  If you are looking to track down sustainable rice in the UK you can find it at NICE RICE.

Cotton and rice are staples in the world and we can make a real difference in choosing the way that they are grown. So why not give NICE RICE a try?

#organiccotton, #sustainablerice

If you’d like to know more about organic cotton visit:

Soil Association

Textile Exchange demonstrates how organic cotton contributes to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

GOTS

Thanks to http://www.freepik.com/ for the rice pic