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organic cotton in Viterbo - abstract
Dear Sanetters, Sustagers, et al.
as we can't seem to be publishing the proceedings of the workshop
on sustainable cotton within this century, here is a little abstract on what
was said and done that day (6 dec 95). Please direct (or cc.) any comment to
aucs@unitus.it. Thank you.
Just to remind you.
AUCS (university association for cooperation and development)
was one of the organizers of a workshop on sustainable cotton at the faculty
of agriculture here in Viterbo, Italy, the others being the italian NGOs Cospe
and Mani Tese. The workshop was meant to promote the Pesticides Trust
"Cotton Chain", and generally to get some infos about the issue into our
faculty. The workshop was preceded by three seminars about some technical
aspects of the cotton filiere. Three lecturers were scheduled to talk at the
workshop, Dorothy Myers from the Pesticides Trust, Dimitri Dimitrialis
freelance/IFOAM agronomist and organic cotton producer, Lodovico Jucker
>from the italian Assn. of Cotton Industrials. Dr Jucker could not be there but
sent the text of his speech.
Dorothy Myers
Ms Myers related about the Pesttrust pilot project being carried out
in Koussenar, Senegal. The decision of working "on the field" was suggested
by several reasons: to complement and add credibility to research and policy
advocacy functions, link the micro- to the macro-level of action; to
experience the viability of alternative systems; to provide economic (in terms
of both food security and returns from cash crops) and environmental
benefits to the farmers involved. Moreover, the following events encouraged
this choice: a rise of input prices due to the changing trade scene; weakened
control by state monopolies on commodities; contacts between ENDA-
PRONAT - a PAN partner in Senegal - and a group of farmers willing to
experience organic growing of cotton.
Cotton is usually cultivated in Koussenar under control of Sodefitex, the
national cotton board. Sodefitex provides the farmers with credit, seeds,
research divulging, and collects the product. Cereal-groundnut-cotton-cereal
rotations are recommended. Pests are controlled using combinations of
pyrethroids and organophosphates. Recommended fertilizers are NPK 50-
46-28 and urea.
An agronomist with experience in organic cotton was contacted, and
through him a european organization interested in buying the product. A
study of feasibility was carried out in august, 94, and after coming to an
agreement with 80 farmers, planting (with untreated seeds) took place in
mid-july 95. Criteria for the farmers included amongst others use of a 0.5 ha
(1.25 acres approx.) maximum area, no use of chemicals in the previous
season, crop rotation, availability of animals for manuring, no loans with
Sodefitex. The interventions proposed focused mostly on improvement of
soil fertility by intercropping with cowpea and use of manure - and further
on of compost and N-fixing plants - and pest management based on the use
of neem extract and monitoring for the development of thresholds. On the
seeds side, Sodefitex-supplied material would be tested under the new
conditions, looking forward to the system to produce its own seeds. When
the workshop took place, in december 95, harvest was yet to begin. The
quoted paragraph below was kindly sent by D.M. and is an excerpt from
Pesticide News No.31.
"Having completed the harvest in January, farmers and the support team
>from ENDA-PRONAT and The Pesticides Trust gathered in Koussenar in
early February to review progress and plan for the next season. Fifty-three
farmers participated in the project in the 1995/6 season with a total of just
over 14 has. A total of 4.6 tonnes of seed cotton was produced organically
and is now stored at the project centre in Koussenar awaiting ginning which
will be carried out at a small gin in the nearby town of Tambacounda.
Although total production was less than expected, yields on the good plots
averaged 560 kg/ha, on the less good plots 287 kg/ha and on the poorer plots
131 kg/ha. About 1.8 tonnes of cotton fibre will be produced after ginning
and 2.5 tonnes of cotton seed, some of which will be given back to the
farmers after 'de-linting' for planting next season. In this way, the seed
supply will be assured. The experience of the farmers in this past season was
gathered at a participatory Workshop held in Koussenar. In a season with
exceptionally low rainfall, a range of problems were identified. The main
ones were the impact of cattle eating the crop, late sowing, some fields being
inadequately weeded, and problems with the use and efficacy of neem pest
control treatments. Several technical aspects of production need further
attention in the coming season such as use of the new sprayers, the
management of manure and spacing of plants. A start was made in
addressing these issues in a further session with farmers and will be
reinforced by the project staff in advance of the next planting."
Lodovico Jucker
These were the main points of Mr Jucker's speech. His absence,
unfortunately, made every comment and/or confrontation on the following
impossible.
In the textile market, products based on "environmental quality" are
still confined to elite groups of conscious consumers, and their share doesn't
seem to be growing. On the industry side, some of the reasons for this may
be commercial inadequacy of goods, often proposed with a generic and/or
unrigorous advertising, and lack of the resources needed to move consumers
towards this type of products.
On the cultural side, instead, both producers and the public seem to
have increased their level of consciousness. In some national markets (not
the italian) assuring the consumer about safety standard is common practice;
thus, everyone in the production process is induced to consider
environmental quality indispensable, no more a "plus" feature.
The problem is, there is still confusion on what are the
environmental standards one should respect; on both supply and demand
sides terms like environment-friendly and healthy, ecological and
unbleached (raw?), are often used as synonims; laboratory tests are often
considered the only reliable proof of ecological quality. The commodity
itself is not given a great deal of importance, provided that it does not
contain dangerous residues.
This situation is supposed to change when the european "Ecolabel"
will introduce clear criteria of quality. The reliability of such label will
probably broaden the market for "ecological" products, pushing to a
changing of the traditional processes (e.g. the dyeing and finishing stages
will surely go through a deep revision).
As to cotton, SKAL has first attempted - in Europe - to establish
standards for a sustainable textile production, admitting only organically
produced fibers. For the Ecolabel scheme two criteria are being discussed:
organic growing and laboratory tests to check for forbidden chemicals in the
fibers. We are strongly against this second option as we consider such tests
not significative; as to the use of organic cotton, our organization would
surely accept it, provided that price and availability allowed the
substitution.
A third possibility could be devised that involved the production and
transformation sectors in a common system of rules, to be established by
agricultural-environmental technicians; regulations should be compatible
with economic feasibility (i.e. something that could be developed on a large
scale). An international organization should exercise control and assure
respect of such rules along the filiere.
Dimitri Dimitrialis
Mr Dimitrialis made a very interesting survey on various aspects of
organic cotton growing in Greece, somehow hard to sum up, as it was made
up of small (and useful) technical hints regarding agronomical, pest
management, marketing issues.
In Greece, the area interested by cotton is about 260,000 ha.,
yielding some 700,000-1,000,0000 tons. Cotton production is heavily
influenced by the agricultural policy of the European Union. A production
threshold of around 1,000,000 tons has been established within the Union
(Greece and Spain are the most important producing countries). On the
other hand, prices are as heavily kept high (approximately 5-fold the world
price) with a system of subsidies to the transformation industries, that
receive them to buy the community product. (*)
Irrigated cotton yields 3-4 tons/ha (unginned), while without
irrigation the yield goes down to 1-1.5 tons/ha. Obviously, dry growers show
more interest for organic cultivation, as they do not suffer from a big
reduction in yield, and have to face less pest management problems.
The main technical problems seem to be associated to weed and
pest control and harvesting. Weeds are controlled mechanically, but the hard
part comes with weeds on the row. As to pest control, pink boll worm and
green worm are the most dangerous insects, together with Aphis gossypii
and Tetranichus. A good rotation does a lot of the job, anyway treatments
with rotenons, pyrethrum, Bt, neem extract (note how the use of neem is not
authorized by greek laws, although suggested by the EU) are carried out
when needed. A degrees/days method has been implemented to monitor the
possibility of parasitic attacks. Mating disruption is also adopted to prevent
infestations. Harvesting is manual, and this obviously causes a rise of costs.
Leguminosae as preceding crop provide some nitrogen; manure and
leftovers are the other organic fertilizers used. Leftovers from olive oil
extraction, wine-making, and cotton ginning, after opportune treatments, are
very good sources of nutrients, and help structuring the soil.
Ginning may represent a problem, as organic and "chemical" cotton
must be kept separated, and the production is still little and scattered.
Short communications were made by representatives of some
organizations. Mr Carnemolla of AIAB, the biggest association of organic
producers in Italy, pointed out the lack of a specific EU discipline on organic
(though he'd prefer "sustainable") cotton. The organic agriculture
regulations only regard products meant for human feeding. He also invited
the organizations carrying on projects in developing countries to pay special
attention to approaching local people, to avoid phenomena of "bio-
colonialism". Mr Fabbri from Greenpeace focused on the residuals of
organochlorines formed in the process of bleaching or deriving from
defoliation. (*) Mr Morganti from the Italian Ministry of Agriculture gave
the infos on the EU policies on cotton quoted above.
Thanks for reaching the end of such an awfully written thing. I'm
the only one to flame for any mistake and/or omission.
AUCS is trying to (find the money to) develop a small pilot project
on organic cotton in Senegal (a fashionable country...the reason is Patrizia
Merlino and Andrea Ferrante, heart and soul of the assn., have been
working there with a NGO for two years). For info, advising, whatever,
write us.
That's all, folks!
marco biagetti
aucs - associazione universitaria per la cooperazione e lo sviluppo
c/o Facolta' di Agraria,
Universita' della Tuscia
Via S.C. de Lellis
01100 Viterbo Italy
aucs@unitus.it