economics,human rights and cash crops

The Effects of Cotton Farming and Consumption on Humans and the Environment: A Comparative Study between the USA and India

The English word “cotton” comes from the Arabic word “qutun”. Cotton and humans have a long history together. Oldest traces of cotton were found in México which were dated to be close to 7000 years old. However it was the people of the Indus valley civilization in India and Pakistan, the indo-Aryans who were farming, weaving, and using cotton in large quantities around 3000 B.C.E. Herodotus the Greek historian talks of a tree growing in India which produces wool that has better quality than sheep wool, in his books in 400 BC. Historically the growing and manufacture of cotton was largely isolated to the northwest part of sub-continental India and parts of Egypt , till 200 C.E. that is when trade between India and China catapulted specially in the form of cotton. As Islam rose in the lands west of India so did trade relations. Around 600 C.E. the Arabs helped spread cotton in much of the Middle East and continental Europe. However it wasn’t until the 1200’s that the western Europeans had any substantial amount of cotton which was brought back by Italian sailors and merchants. Columbus found cotton growing on the Bahama Islands in 1492; however the first cotton was planted in the continental USA in 1556 in Florida and in Virginia in 1607 ( the Cotton Story). The industrial revolution coupled with the invention of the cotton gin pushed cotton production to huge proportions. The cotton gin which was invented in 1793 in Massachusetts increased the cotton profits from $150,000 to $8 million dollars. This amount in 2003 US dollars after taking care of inflation and other factors comes to around $144 million (Economic History Services). Cotton forms a large part of the present day American economy as well, adding over $120 billion dollars in business stimulated revenue. India is the third largest producer of cotton in the world, where the cotton industry employs over 4 million workers and creates over 15 million bales of cotton ( a bale being approximately 360 pounds ) a year. The six countries which account for three-fourth of the world cotton production in descending order of production are – China, USA, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. Together these countries accounted for 16 million tones of the 23 million tones of cotton produced globally in 2004 (UNCTAD). Even though the USA and India are both cotton powerhouses, the way cotton is processed, handled and effects that it has socially, culturally and environmentally vary a lot. This paper will try and delve into the significant differences between the production, handling and distribution of cotton in American (USA) and Indian society and the effects that has had environmentally, socially and economically.
Cotton is synonymous with the ugliest part of American history – slavery. The first slaves were brought to the new world in august 1616. However it was only in 1793 after the creation of the cotton gin that the employment of slaves in the cotton industry really took off. Until the thirteenth amendment in 1865, over 1.8 million slaves were a part of the cotton industry for over 72 years. The point to be noted here, however, is how and why did American farmers and plantation owner’s start paying so much attention to cotton and growing it ahead of a lot of other crops that were naturally occurring in the region? Even though cotton fabrics were available in smaller quantities in middle 16th century in Europe, it wasn’t until 18th century when ladies in the high society in Europe started obsessing over cotton dresses. These clothes called, indiennes, after the actual origin of the fabric from India, began to be valued more than silk and muslin. This happened largely due to the availability of this seemingly exotic fabric in large quantities as the East India Company brought thousands of bales back from Bengal. To add to this was the fact that cotton could “breathe” much better than silk or muslin and thus was much more suitable for the summer dresses that became popular during this era. Another major event was the creation of denim. Denim fabric started getting very popular with the working class due to its longetivity and ability to withstand rough use. The market for it started to explode and special mills were made just for the creation of denim and jeans. Therefore Britain started to import large amounts of cotton from the south East Asian countries. As the New World opened up cotton farming was encouraged more, and more to feed the demands of a growing British population and thus even though cotton required immense manual labor to grow, and depleted the soil way more than tobacco did , tobacco farms were converted into cotton growing plantations. Thus after the war of independence the colonies started to produce cotton in large amounts which was mainly due to the invention of the cotton gin and England’s growing demands. Close to the middle 1800s there started to be changes in cotton production, instead of the raw materials being imported to London cotton mills, they were instead sent from the southern states to the northern states. Thus the northern states started processing and making the actual fabric and then importing them to the empire. This led to the northern states sanctioning loans for the purchase of slaves and building of new plantations in the south and added another avenue for the strengthening of the already burgeoning economy. The south on the other hand turned into an economic power house, due to the almost zero labor costs and forever rising raw cotton sales. Thus “while cotton exports totaled only $5 million (seven percent of total U.S. exports) in 1800, they rose to $30 million in 1830 (41 percent of U.S. exports) and reached $191 million in 1860 (57 percent of total U.S. exports). By 1850, cotton consumption averaged five and a half pounds per person in Great Britain and the United States, in large part because the price of cotton textiles had fallen to roughly one percent of their cost in 1784” (West)
While America’s economical backbone was being formed by cotton cultivation, the rigorous use of the land led to the almost complete ruination of the top soil in the southern states. Environmentally cotton was a disaster; it removed large amounts of nitrates from the soil and required copious quantities of chemical fertilizers as compared to tobacco or wheat. The transformation of huge tracts of land to cotton plantations also led to wide spread biodiversity loss. The south east was getting turning into a top soil graveyard with widespread destruction of it, but since the USA had so much land to spare in the west, cotton plantation moved west. This led to removal of Native Americans from their lands and caused bloody wars between the settlers and the natives. The largest factor that was required for cotton cultivation was labor and slavery provided the answer. After the revolutionary war most of the cash crops were hit bad and thus there was a depreciation in market value and slave owners started selling off their slaves due to the lack of work, however with the advent of the cotton age, thousands of jobs were created and hundreds of slaves were recaptured or brought back to work in the fields. Thus cotton helped fuel the last 80 odd years of slave labor. Therefore the supply demand demographic which started with the incessant demand for cotton in the mills in Liverpool led to the total agricultural transformation of the American south to a cotton producing, revenue generating industry which helped regenerate the slave labor in America and led to the destruction of top soil in many southern states, especially Georgia (West).
On a more contemporary perspective, the detrimental effects of cotton growing in the USA can be felt in the form of organophosphate and formaldehyde which are a part of the pesticides that are sprayed on the cotton crops. Around 300 pounds of agri-chemicals and pesticides are applied to an acre of cotton from which 1000 pounds of fiber are obtained. Studies have shown that over 75% of the crop dusters actually miss the cotton crops and dust nearby fields thus exposing people and the environment to powerful organic pesticides (Conventional Cotton Production). Organophosphates which were used to develop Sarin, the powerful nerve gas, are said to have adverse effects on the nervous system and react with skin tissues to cause inflammation and damage. Formaldehyde, which is found in many industrial pesticides, can trigger asthma when exposed to in high doses and has been identified as a carcinogen. Therefore the exposure to the pesticides sprayed on cotton crops can cause serious problems not just to humans, but to any living thing. Another aspect is the rather large demands that cotton makes on the soil. Chemical fertilizer usage for cotton farming is among the highest globally for any crop. Added to that is the fast depletion of nitrogen from the soil and a loss in soil organism diversity (Dept. of Environment and Heritage, Australian Government; Karaliedde, Feldman, Marrs; Benbrook).
In the USA after the abolition of slavery and with the rise of better technology most of the work done in the cotton farming and development is done by machines. Therefore the number of people exposed to the chemical hazards has been reduced greatly (The Cotton Story). Secondly with the coming of the globalization era US cotton industries have sought to purchase raw cotton from the developing countries. As one article boldly states, “Cotton has become a symbol of the inequities of global agricultural trade” (Oxfam Briefing Paper); this can be related to the huge US subsidies that are prevalent in many parts of the world. Due to the subsidies paid by the US, lots of countries lose a large amount of export revenues. Subsidies which are large sums of money make the private investors of the specific region decrease the selling price of their products and often times ensure that their produce doesn’t get sold ; this makes produce from outside competitors find a market. Often this is done by the government of a country to ensure that there is an inflow of cheap raw material to the various industries. Thus in essence the US government pays investors of other countries so that they can increase their imports which greatly increase the market for the American products while the native products are ignored. The US government in 2002 provided a total of $3.4 billion in the form of cotton subsidies. This amount caused for a huge depression in the world cotton prices and ensured that many private enterprises lost thousands of dollars and couldn’t recover back their investments. Sub Saharan Africa which is home to some of the poorest countries of the world lost over $305 million dollars in 2001 due to subsidies while ensuring that these countries didn’t make any positive steps towards lessening their national debt. This is related to the fact that in recent years US demand for cotton has fallen while production has hit record highs leading to large exports. In 2003 the USA exported 76% of its cotton and took in 41% of the worlds exports, this could only be achieved through government directed subsidies. The division of the export money however is very unequal with the top 10 % getting 33% of the total and the bottom 67% receiving less than 10%. On the other hand US subsidies have led to a 6 – 7% increase in poverty in the sub-Saharan countries (Oxfam Briefing Paper; Globe Editorial; AfricaFocus Bulletin).
India’s cotton industry goes back almost 5000 years. However the fabric was created mostly by hand and on a smaller scale to feed domestic markets. India had a rather advanced weaving and textile industry which formed a large part of its exports to other nations. The British rule in India changed all this. The colonials forced their landlordism and individual peasant proprietorship while totally undermining the agrarian economy and self-governing village. The British imposed stringent laws on the creation and weaving of handicrafts and helping the domestic industry, instead the skilled labor were involved in the creation of goods for the British empire whereby India was exploited of its agricultural and natural resources while England got richer. Therefore there was a huge void created in the Indian society from its fast disappearing industrial sector which was then filled up by over-priced British goods which further exploited the people and broke the backbone of the economy. Cotton which was the biggest part of India’s export suffered a huge blow. In order to find a market for the huge surplus of cotton goods being produced in Liverpool and Lancashire the Indian mills were closed down and the weavers and other skilled labor were either laid off or killed. Thus over a century of oppression and transfer of power to feudal landlords and systematic destruction of industry, India’s once flourishing cotton industry was demolished. After independence through the efforts of pioneers like Gandhi the home industry and domestic work slowly started to make a comeback, but over 200 years of exploitation had reduced India’s capital to almost zero and there was unequal distribution of wealth as well as widespread chaos in the agricultural sector. Other than that India was heavily relying on British imports to feed its fast growing consumer market. The government paid huge sums to obtain these products and this further took away from the already weakened economy. Due to the huge advances made by the southern states in USA the cotton produced by the mills in India didn’t as readily find a market anymore, to add to it , many other countries had started cultivating their own cotton crops (European Crusades, Christianization, and Colonization). By the 1880’s using capital from wealthier Indians and personal ambition Indians had reclaimed some of the cotton mills. These mills were unlike the ones that existed before the colonialization. They were Indian hybrids of the industrial revolution. The problem which seems sort of contradictory was that India failed to capitalize on the industrial base that colonials had established. The labor laws that were prevalent in England were implemented in India and so were certain import laws. Thus while countries like Japan were instigated by the competition with the world market to produce better quality , protected by their import laws and worker unions the Indian workers got paid more and worked fewer hours. Thus with the advent of stringent labor laws which were thought to act as a protection for the cotton and other industries the Indian economy never really fulfilled the promise of being a manufacturing work horse. Therefore even though the industry did gain its footing on a smaller more domestic level after independence, due to the lack of large production bases and the absence of influx of trade the total output was far less than countries like China, Japan and Australia (Lal). To add to this is the absence of adequate infrastructure, which has resulted in India becoming the number one country in the usage of crop land for cotton production (9 million hectares) but only third in production. In fact India’s out put of 300 kg per hectare (data collected in 2003) is less than the world average of 558 kg and way lower than Australia’s 1000kg and USA’s 800 kg (Ministry of Textiles, Government of India). This is essentially due to the fact that over the last 20 years the Indian government has paid the farmers 20% less every year in order to keep the textile industry running, therefore due to loss of essential capital the farmers haven’t had the infrastructure to increase yield and due to the low selling price focused on other higher paying crops (Sharma, Menon). As there is no known relationship between increased fertilizer use and crop yield, India’s chemical fertilizer use which is 73 kg/ha and is below the world average of 96 kg/ha is not the main issue even though many would like to say it is, on the other hand the improper management of water resources, a lack of scientific knowledge about agriculture and the presence of low external input farming in small fragmented pieces of land have been at the forefront of a low yield per hectare. The US on the other hand uses close to 87 kg/ha of chemical fertilizers and gets and gets more than double the yield, however the factors which really help the US are the presence of educated farmers, adequate water resource management and a higher external input monetarily. Therefore Indian methods of cotton farming for the most part are just as detrimental to the environment and produce less per hectare which makes farmers transform more land into farmland (Hegde).
In comparison to the USA, where almost 85% of the cotton manufacturing process is mechanized, in India over 80% of the process still requires human labor. This in itself reduces efficiency and also exposes a larger population to the hazards of the trade. These being direct exposure to carcinogenic pesticides as they are manually sprayed, indirect exposure to pesticide residue in the water and often food(since most of these farmers cannot afford to buy processed food) and development of back and spinal problems due to carrying of the heavy pesticide spraying apparatus which weigh over 80 pounds. Cotton harvesting done by hand often requires hours of tedious labor which result in Musculoskeletal injuries due to repetitive and forceful work. Working under the sun for long hours also increases the chances or skin cancer. To add to this in most places 50% of the cotton workers employed is children who are bonded debt slaves that work for in many situations less than 40 cents a day. However hand picking of cotton does ensure that there are no defoliants around. Defoliants which are close relatives of Agent Orange can cause grave mutational defects and are highly carcinogenic. Hand picking also leads to a product that is cleaner and doesn’t require secondary cleaning to get rid of the excess foliage that is present in the collected material. This is environmentally much friendlier than the mechanized process but does subject the pickers to harmful factors that lead to health issues and are also in violation of basic human rights (BBC World Service; International Labor Organization).
Being a developing country for the better part of the twentieth century, India indulged in using heavy doses of fertilizers and pesticides in the cotton industry which resulted in “environmental hazards like nitrate pollution of ground water, increased emission of gaseous nitrogen and metal toxicity” (qtd. in Katyal, 1989). An addition of excess gaseous nitrogen to the atmosphere affects the Nitrogen Cycle. Since there is a certain composition of atmospheric nitrogen which sustains the equilibrium between soil nitrates and the nitrogen dissolved in the water. This results in polluted air and soils depleted of nitrates. Heavy metals like mercury, lead, arsenic and many others are often fundamental constituents of pesticides. Therefore an increase in the use of pesticides often increases the quantity of metals within the food web and thus exposes various different living things to their proven carcinogenic effects. The use of pesticides has gone up constantly over the last 50 years and in fact has often resulted in proving more detrimental to the natural pest eradicators like birds and spiders which has led to large pest outbreaks. The contamination of ground water and the low health care available to most of the cotton workers has affected the labor efficiency and decreased the production. Another problem is the fragmentation of cropland. Due to the rather large population and individualized holdings in India the land is divided into smaller patches which lead to un-uniformity and affect crop growth. Thus instead of competing with the world market there are thousands of private farmers competing with each other , since 70% of the cotton marketed in India is through private trade (Hegde). Cotton is a pesticide hog, as it uses up 50% of the pesticides used in the Indian agricultural sector, making it the highest pesticide/ha crop (Ministry of Textiles). Often times the lack of education on the part of the cotton farmer and the lack of one basic unit of exchange across the whole nation has resulted in very low returns for the private investor which in turn affects the total nation’s output by reducing the quality of the next crop, since a low return means a smaller capital and lower production and care value. A reminder of the devastating effects of industrial pesticides is the leak of methyl isocyanate at the union carbide plant at Bhopal in 1984 which killed thousands of people and has since resulted in hundreds of birth defects and breathing problems and carcinogenic effects.
The USA having industrialized a lot earlier than India and in a position to spend large amounts on the development of better health care systems and schools has for the most part protected its cotton workers in the recent years from both the effects of pesticides and ensured that they get a fair price for their produce. Due to the presence of a huge difference in the standard of living between a cotton farmer in India and one in USA, American cotton farmers in the last decade haven’t negatively affected the environment as much as Indian farmers have. The American government spends approximately five times more money in doing research in cleaner and safer ways to grow crops than the Indian government (Warfield; Fan, Hazel, Thorat).
This brings up a controversial topic of discussion – the use of Genetically Modified cotton. The USA and China have implemented GM cotton since the late 1990’s. After using the most toxic pesticides and spending thousands of dollars on chemical fertilizers the farmers were ready to try something else, thus in 2000 over 2.1 million hectares of GM cotton was planted. They had a gene from the bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), and was sold by Monsanto, which controls over 85% of all GM cotton planted in the world, as Roundup Ready. In 2001 the number of hectares planted came down to 1.5 million which was a testimony to the fact that GM cotton didn’t hold the magical answer to the pest problems as the farmers had expected it to. The reduction in the total land area was due to the fact that farmers didn’t experience any large marginal benefits with Bt cotton and thus reverted back to their original forms of agriculture using natural rather than transgenic cotton strains. An added problem was that they were being confronted with various problems that they hadn’t faced before. For example the transgenic cotton planted in the Hebei province in China made the cotton very susceptible to algal infections. In India a rather controversial situation occurred when Mahyco, a branch of Monsanto, distributed GM cotton seeds to cotton farmers in south india that were unaware and ignorant of how to treat this hybrid. Such an activity would require permission from the ministry of agriculture and Mahyco were unable to produce any such permit (Dinham; Bennet, Ismael, Kambhampati).
In the USA the usage of GM cotton hasn’t significantly reduced the pesticide usage. This would make sense since the GM crops don’t provide immunity against all pest types. However to add to this are the following problems that are created by this transgenic variety –
· GM cotton might pass the genes on to the surrounding weeds which would then be a lot tougher to eradicate
· GM cotton affects organisms that are actually beneficial or harmless like the Monarch butterfly
· GM cotton could produce faster resistance in the pest species which would then require the use of pesticide and more money spent on R and D
· It is really tough to always educate the farmers dealing with GM crops, especially in developing countries like India or the sub Saharan countries.
. As an example in South Carolina, GM cotton was growing as a weed within other Gm crops and over $1.3 million was spent in eradicating efforts without much avail (Dinham). Therefore another unknown threat could be the emergence of GM crops as weeds. However in an experiment in southern India where the Bollworm complex is the largest threat to cotton farmers and make them spend thousands of dollars every year on pesticides, Bt cotton showed some positive results. The Bt cotton strain obtained from Monsanto that was used reduced the usage of Bollworm insecticide from 4 sprays a year to just one spray a year. The Bt cotton however offered no protection against weevils and aphids. Thus there was lower usage of organophosphates and other carcinogenic insecticides by the farmers over the period of a year. The variables that weren’t covered in this experiment or for that matter isn’t in any GM crop experiment are the long term effects of the species on the environment. India which spends $180 million a year on pesticides which are rather toxic and environmentally detrimental might gain from the usage of GM cotton (Bennet, Ismael, Kambhampati). Since GM cotton is still in its experimental stages, countries like India will have to learn from mistakes of countries like USA.
The American policy in recent years in terms of subsidies has affected the Indian cotton market as well, which seems to be a reflection of the 1800s when cotton mills in India were shut down in order to find a market for the cotton grown in the southern states of the USA. Cotton grown in USA sells on the world market for 65 cents a pound, while that grown in India sells for less than 40 cents a pound, therefore in order to compete American tax dollars go to payment of subsidies which run into billions of dollars. This eventually hurts the Indian cotton growers and in a way is a form of industrial colonialism which is being practiced by the USA (The Globe editorial). After the not to brilliant results that were obtained from the GM cotton and years of toxic pesticide using Indian cotton farmers are returning to green farming and the organic way of harvesting. They are being helped by the scientists at IPM (integrated pest management) who are working on bio-fertilizers and herbicides and fungicides that are developed from naturally occurring products. This however could spell doom for India’s Biotechnology industry which had invested a lot in the GM crops research in recent years and was actually looking at it to resurrect the economy in the agricultural sector (Organic Consumer Association).
Organic farming in the USA has been mainly concentrated around the west coast, especially California. Currently around 16,000 acres of organic cotton have been planted in the US of A and less than 0.1% of the total cotton output is from organic cotton. The move to switch to organic cotton production was adopted by certain farmers after looking at the rather disturbing data that showed up as a result of pesticide use. Over 14 million people every day in the USA are getting exposed to herbicidal water which is carcinogenic in nature, in California 5 of the top 9 used pesticides are known carcinogens, pesticides killed over 97 million birds in the US every year, pesticide usage areas showed individuals with chromosomal anomalies and other related health effects and over 11,000 Americans die each year of cancer caused by interactions with pesticides (Conventional Cotton Production). Thus in face of such compelling data the move to mobilize organic farming was made. The cost benefit analysis which is usually the biggest decider of such a decision was in favor of organic farming since pesticides cost the USA almost a billion dollars a year. On the flipside organic cotton reduces the productivity by 50% and since there is expected to be a 2.5% increase in the world cotton demand over the next 5 years this could be a problem (Shurley). Thus advocates against organic cotton have often used this against the idea of a more sustainable farming technique, thus the choice here is between: a cleaner more eco-friendly method compared to a higher yielding method. Handpicking cotton eliminates the addition of defoliants which causes serious environmental issues, however logistically it doesn’t work as labor costs skyrocket when cotton is handpicked (Winston;Couger).
On the brighter side the organic cotton farming which is fast spreading in southern India has fostered in increased biodiversity. Pollinators and insects which were the natural pest predators have returned and are actually doing a great job against the organisms that have produced an immunity towards the pesticide. By focusing on the most essential part of a good harvest, the quality of soil, the farmers have returned their focus on what is most important; vermicompost and cow dung are used extensively and the top soil is cared for in great detail. The Bollworm curse which has been the greatest bane to the Indian cotton industry was an invasive species introduced from American cotton varieties that were brought over in merchant ships. With the new surge of organic farming there has been a marked decrease in the bollworm. Organic farming has helped resurrect the Indian cotton industry which was aptly described after the green revolution as “the life expectancy has increased but the quality of life has deteriorated” (Siddaramaiah, Srinivas). Organic farming which is in its fledgling stages is a great remedy to the years of exploitive agricultural practices which involved pesticides that poisoned both the water and earth.
Therefore Organic cotton is much more environmentally friendly, reduces cost of cultivation and helps in the department of handling pesticide resistance. On the whole it also puts forth a much more biocentric ethic, where the farm is looked at as a living organism and therefore farming is done not with objective to exploit the land for the maximum benefit but to create a sustainable environment which reduces strain on the environment and fosters a much healthier lifestyle. Even though the yield per hectare is lower than in agriculture practiced with chemical pesticides and fertilizers, it doesn’t affect the market much since there has been a slow decline of demand and a large increase in supply globally, leading to the decrease in cotton prices and widespread economic loss for thousands of cotton farmers (Shurley).
The US cotton industry has a rather painful past due to its association with slavery and one that in many ways formed the backbone of its booming economy. By creating a market for only American grown cotton the USA successfully managed to spread the pests associated with American grown cotton to other parts of the world, in addition to that it also managed to destroy the cotton industries of other countries. More recently due to the decrease in demand of cotton in USA, the billions of dollars paid in subsidies to other countries have had devastating effects on the economies of developing nations. Their development of GM crops as the ultimate solution to the pest problem has proved to be a stalemate as well, with mixed responses from various regions of the world. The USA cotton industry thus has successfully affected the economies of other nations and also ensured the transformation of huge food crop lands into cotton farms which have resulted in a huge surplus in the world market. The USA was also the pioneer in the use of chemical pesticides which in the last fifty years have had rather horrific effects on both man and nature, from cancer to loss of pollinators; pesticides have on the whole changed the whole balance of ecosystems. However on a more positive note Organic Cotton farming has been represented very vocally by the US for implementation in other countries, even though organic cotton grown in this country remains rather insignificant.
The Indian cotton industry which was rather advanced and producing enough to meet the demands of its local people and a few other nations was almost obliterated by colonization. With the onset of the industrial revolution and the development of the cotton gin, the Indians could no longer keep up with the much more efficient and mechanized countries like USA and China. Post independence India spent a lot of time adopting a westernized model of cotton farming which included the use of heavy pesticides and chemical fertilizers, however due to the different nature of farming practiced in India as compared to the west and the low education level of most farmers added to the very poor management of water resources and fragmentation of farmland, the total out put per hectare was still very low. Due to a mostly non-mechanized farming process, there is a widespread employment of bonded labor, especially children who work under ghastly situations and spend hours every day under harsh environmental conditions working on the farms. This and other aspects of farming (exposure to pesticides) are both socially and physically detrimental to the population. India has had a few GM cotton varieties that were tested but there hasn’t been a substantial growth of transgenic cotton. The last few years however have seen the rather rapid growth of organic farming which is a rather eco-friendly way to raise crops and is also a return to the pre-colonial days when the farmers used the earth and the environment around them to manufacture a crop. This has also helped in the recovery of pollinators and predators that prey on pests and in a way reverted some balance back to the ecosystem.