for Climate Smart Cotton
By Jim Steadman, Editor, Cotton Grower Magazine
Sustainability. Transparency. Regenerative farming practices. Consumer demand.
In less than a decade, these terms — and others of a similar nature — have become part of the cotton industry lexicon. U.S. cotton growers have a long-standing reputation of proper environmental management as part of their production of the high-quality cotton fiber desired by mills and consumers around the world.
Yet consumer questions and demands have intensified the focus on where cotton in their clothing and other items comes from and how it’s produced. What steps are taken from the time cotton is harvested and ginned until it reaches the mills and ultimately to the store shelves? And, perhaps more importantly, how comfortable am I, as a consumer, with that process?
These questions have led multiple companies with well-known brands, including Levi Strauss, IKEA, Target, Gap, and J.Crew, to institute their own corporate sustainability programs. Related industry sustainability projects are also in place through cottonseed companies BASF, Corteva, and others.
All are designed to highlight the transparency of each company’s supply chain to help prove that their products are, indeed, produced sustainably. If you don’t think that’s important, keep this in mind: a lawsuit was filed in 2022 against fast-fashion retailer H&M for “greenwashing” — or, in simpler terms, making deceptive or exaggerated claims about the sustainability of its clothing.
These activities have not gone unnoticed by the U.S. cotton industry. It’s one of the reasons the National Cotton Council established a Cotton Sustainability Task Force in 2017 to examine these trends and develop recommendations for U.S. cotton production.
Two key factors provided motivation for the group. First, an awareness of the hard work and commitment of many U.S. cotton growers to the highest environmental and labor standards. And secondly, an understanding of the growing expectation of brands and retailers to not only provide goods that have highly transparent supply chains and a robust sustainability profile, but also to provide the evidence of this.
Out of the task force’s findings came the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol (USCTP).
Setting Standards for Delivering and Satisfying Sustainable Data
Launched in 2020, the USCTP was designed to set a new standard in more sustainably grown cotton and create a higher level of transparency throughout the cotton supply chain — from fiber to yarn to fabric to brands and retailers. By the end of 2022, the program had already welcomed more than 1100 brand, retailer, mill, and manufacturer members.
According to a January presentation by Dr. Gary Adams, USCTP President and CEO, enrollment among cotton growers continues to increase, with 624 growers completing all registration requirements in 2021, and more than 425 growers participating in the 2022 enrollment period which ended March 31, 2023. An additional 1200 growers are in the system but have not completed all enrollment steps. For data collection purposes, enrolled growers look for continuous improvement in six key sustainability metrics — land use, soil carbon, water management, soil loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy efficiency.
“We’re a good bit ahead in grower enrollment compared to where we were this time a year ago,” reports Adams. “But we obviously still have work to do to try to get that participating total up to the 800-900 grower mark for 2022. The other part of the program is a need for volume. It’s not just collecting data from growers, but it’s also having their bales uploaded into the platform as well.”
USCTP is also working closely with the peanut industry’s sustainability program to help enroll cotton and peanut producers who want to be in both programs.
In 2021, the 624 registered growers uploaded 1.6 million bales of cotton off of roughly 1.0 million acres. The numbers for 2022 show roughly 813,000 bales on the books.
“They can do that through a common portal online that links the peanut program and the cotton program to help us both achieve our goals and make it easier for producers,” explains Adams.
Tillman White is the Program Operations Manager for USCTP. In a recent interview on Cotton Grower magazine’s Cotton Companion podcast, he notes that the interest among mills, manufacturers, and retailers is driven by their customers.
“At the start of the program, a lot of our brands and retailers were under pressure from NGOs, stakeholders within the company, and even consumers, where they needed to provide information on where they're sourcing their fibers,” White says. “They needed to not only see how that product is made, but where it goes throughout the supply chain. That's really where the big membership push stemmed from our brands and retailers, as well as mills and manufacturers.”
White notes that, as of the end of March, there are slightly more than 1200 approved members in the protocol, including member company subsidiaries, who can receive shipments of U.S. cotton. Working with USCTP partner Textile Genesis, they can add a tag system that creates a digital token that can track the movement of those bales from the farm and gin all the way through the production system. That’s important information, especially considering a number of brands have publicly committed to only sourcing preferred sustainable fiber by 2025.
To that end, the USCTP is now part of those preferred fiber lists through its alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, recognition by Textile Exchange and Forum for the Future, and involvement with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Cotton 2025 Sustainable Cotton Challenge, Cotton 2040, and CottonUP initiatives. USCTP has also been recognized and published in the ITC Standards Map.
Next Step: Climate Smart Cotton
Interest and involvement in USCTP continues to grow among cotton producers, mills, manufacturers, and retailers, with new and expanded programs coming online beginning in 2023, including the Climate Smart Cotton program.
In 2022, USDA awarded $90 million for a Climate Smart cotton program to be administered by USCTP in collaboration with Cotton Incorporated, Cotton Council International, the Soil Health Institute, the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund, Alabama A&M University, North Carolina A&T University, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, and Agricenter International in Memphis — with additional industry investment from the National Cotton Council, Cotton Incorporated, and Target.
Growers enrolled in USCTP will be eligible to participate in the program, which has a goal of providing technical and financial assistance to 1650 growers who have acres available for Climate Smart practice changes. Approximately $70 million will be earmarked for grower enrollment and to provide financial assistance for growers who adopt new sustainable farming practices. A subset of enrolled producers can also explore carbon insets for their cotton acres through the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund.
“We’re still working to iron out the program details with USDA so we can pass that information on to the growers,” White says. “We are seeing some interest from our producer members. It’s another opportunity for our producers to have some type of financial benefit where they can try new practices that maybe they've never tried before and have access to more information about the best practices that this program can offer to them.
“I think another benefit for growers within the Protocol is having access to their own data within our platform,” he adds. “That allows them to see the environmental footprint of each of their fields, compare their fields with other fields, and see what areas they can improve upon based on aggregated regional and national data.”
White notes that growers are starting to hear more about the USCTP from other industry sources, including ginners, cotton marketers, and potential customers interested in sourcing protocol bales. That level of overall industry support is important. And it’s why the focus on the Climate Smart program will intensify in 2023.
According to White, the program hopes to provide grants for up to 650 growers.
“Hopefully, we’re in a position to initiate that first round of support to those participants for the 2023 program year,” Adams says. “It’s very exciting to see the tremendous potential to enroll acres in the program and to build demand for our Climate Smart cotton.”
“I don't know if we'll be able to get all of those growers enrolled in 2023, but hopefully we can get there over the next two years,” he says. “That will help get more bales into the system as demand increases and more brands come to the table to help us reach our goals for the Climate Smart cotton.”
