Regenerative Farming and Fashion’s Sustainable Future
Fashion brands have been introduced from high street to high street Regenerative agriculture practices in their supply chains to promote sustainability. These agricultural practices work in harmony with nature. Reducing chemical fertilizers and pesticides, reducing tillage and reintroducing traditional crop rotations are not just a trend – they are essential for the clothing sector’s transition to a more sustainable future.
For everyone involved in fashion supply chains, now is the time to move beyond a “do less harm” approach to one where there is a net positive outcome that benefits our planet and the people who depend on its good health for their livelihoods.
Textile supply chain stakeholders concerned with soil degradation
Cotton Connect She recently conducted research among farmers, implementing partners, staff and ginners in Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan to find out what they consider to be the most important environmental, social and economic issue regarding sustainable cotton and sustainable cotton supply chains. The results showed that soil health has become the most important environmental factor for sustainable cotton, rising from third place in a similar survey conducted in December 2020 and overtaking climate change and chemical use.
Those on the front lines of global cotton supply chains understand better than anyone that we are experiencing a soil crisis. Modern industrial agricultural practices—including monocropping, use of chemical fertilizers, pesticide spraying, logging, and removal of wildlife habitat—have destroyed nearly Half the world The most fertile soil. As this layer of productive topsoil thins, it becomes increasingly difficult to grow crops for food and fabric.
Challenges of maintaining soil health
Although it is important to maintain cotton crop quality and productivity, maintaining soil health is a more difficult process than many people realize. Soil is one of the most complex living ecosystems on Earth. A handful of healthy soil contains More lively Of the planet’s human population. These huge numbers of living organisms must be kept in balance, because they all provide different benefits.
The climate emergency is also exacerbating soil degradation. As temperatures rise, wind and rainfall patterns become more extreme, leading to increased soil erosion. The topsoil is simply blown away or run off into rivers or other bodies of water.
In turn, soil infertility exacerbates climate and biodiversity crises. Healthy soil captures and stores large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As soils deteriorate, we lose essential carbon stores, so the world warms and the weather becomes increasingly chaotic, making agriculture more difficult. Poor soil also leads to a loss of biodiversity by negatively affecting the vegetation that provides food and shelter for many animal species.
Implementing sustainable solutions in the fashion supply chain
The truth is that we cannot continue to farm as we are. This will degrade our farmlands in the long term, threatening the future of the textile industry and putting the livelihoods of all people working in supply chains at risk.
That’s why regenerative agriculture is so important: it provides an agricultural system that addresses climate and biodiversity challenges in a comprehensive way. By working to maintain the balance of natural ecosystems, this method of farming is based on the obvious, but underappreciated, fact that fertile soil is the foundation of all terrestrial life. Because it is grounded in many pre-industrial traditions, it prioritizes healthy soil.
In 2021, we introduced the REEL Renewable Cotton Act to promote agricultural biodiversity, enrich soil, improve water management and develop ecosystems. To put this Code into practice, in 2022 and 2023 we launched a regenerative cotton pilot initiative in Gujarat, India, to train more than 350 smallholder farmers in regenerative agronomy, enabling them to grow cotton using principles that are economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially acceptable. .
The first year of comprehensive training courses and demonstrations has laid the foundation for a lasting transformation in agricultural practices. Methods have been investigated including agroforestry, biochar production, intercropping, use of compost or vermicompost for soil management and biodegradation using rotary and cotton cutting. While the transition to regenerative practices is a major adjustment for beginning cotton growers and will need additional support and a longer time frame to fully understand the impact, an initial evaluation of the first year of the pilot program has shown significant progress.
Three-quarters of farmers reported adopting practices to enhance biodiversity, including initiatives such as installing bird perches and identifying and conserving beneficial insects. Ten percent of farmers have switched to preparing and using homemade biopesticides, replacing chemical pesticides. The results indicate a significant reduction of 23 percent in the use of chemical fertilizers by the project farmers compared to the control group farmers. We used it too Great farm tool To analyze the project’s effectiveness in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with an evaluation showing that emissions per acre from the project farms were approximately 23 percent lower than those from conventional control farms.
These may still be early days for our regenerative cotton pilot project, but we are committed to a long-term vision of empowering farmers with the knowledge and resources to achieve a future where sustainable agriculture becomes the norm. We know that this will have significant benefits for the communities involved, as well as contributing to the global shift towards regenerative practices.
The way forward
For future-proof fashion supply chains, we must farm in a way that gives back to nature as much as necessary. An agricultural focus on soil health will bring many broader benefits, such as increased crop productivity, enhanced farm profitability, improved social outcomes for farming communities, improved water management, and enhanced resilience to climate change. The truth is that regenerative agriculture is not a passing trend but the most important next step in fashion’s sustainability journey.
Alison Ward is CEO of Cotton Connect.
