Organic cotton is being harvested here in Nicaragua as I write this! Last week I went out into the fields to film the beginning of the harvest with our Cuban agronomist Raúl Machín, Bená Burda, the president of Maggie’s Organics (principal buyer for the organic fiber) and Margaret Larson, who is making a film about our organic cotton production chain – the first ever to be certified in Fair Labor Practices and Community Benefits.
Seeing the cotton in the fields is a remarkable experience considering that three years ago there was no cotton being grown in Nicaragua at all. Historically, cotton was always one Nicaragua’s top two exports; right up there with coffee. It was so prominent that folks here joke that the cotton plant with its fluffy white bolls was the Nicaraguan Christmas tree. But the cotton was grown in monoculture, i.e. cotton fields as far as the eye could see. The problem with that is that any natural pests – in this case the boll weevil – view those large contiguous fields as one great big banquet. In order to combat the boll weevil, the big agricultural companies farming cotton used chemical pesticides. There are many problems with using pesticides: ground water contamination, air and soil pollution, and health problems for field workers among others. But from a strictly economic standpoint, pesticide use is costly – not only the cost of the pesticide to start with, but it also creates a snowball effect: the boll weevil becomes resistant to the pesticide, and so more has to be applied. By the time that cotton really began to decline in Nicaragua at the end of the 1980s, there were some farmers who were putting as many as 50 applications of pesticides on their cotton crop in one season. Not only is that expensive, but the boll weevil had become such a problem that the risk of losing a significant part of the crop to the pest was high. At the same time that cotton farming was becoming really expensive and risky, international cotton prices fell, and it was suddenly no longer economically viable to plant cotton in Nicaragua. Until now…
Why is planting cotton different now? We’re planting organic cotton and growing on a small-scale; in no more than 35 contiguous acre plots (most farmers are planting 2 to 5 acres of cotton). All of the cotton is either certified organic or produced without use of chemicals. Farmers rotate their crops annually– with peanuts, sesame, sorghum, oats and white beans to fix the nitrogen in the soil. By our rules of production, no trees are cut down to plant this cotton, and no food crops are taken out of production for this cash crop. Workers (mostly co-op members) are treated fairly, receive a fair wage and the cooperatives invest back into their communities.
With this background, we hope you can see the significance of organic cotton growing in the fields of Nicaragua…and the cotton that is being harvested now will be the first fiber that Genesis uses to spin organic cotton yarn; after such a long struggle to get into production! It’s a small victory – this year, our third year of organic cotton production, will yield a small harvest of just 60,000 lbs. due to lack of rain – but this year’s small victory will encourage more farmers to plant organic cotton next year, and our sustainable production chain will grow. Over at the Genesis co-op they’re celebrating this renewal and the hope of the new year by decorating an organic cotton plant with is fluffy white bolls to fit the season: Feliz Navidad and Happy Harvesting! – Becca
Thanks to Bená Burda and Margaret Larson for the photos
