Most of what you read about cotton isn’t true

How misinformation about cotton is spreading and which claims to drop immediately.

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Jun 09, 2023

Working for a fashion brand? Then chances are high, your company is selling products made of cotton. And this issue is exactly what you need, to make sure you’re not one to spread misinformation.

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It’s a tough job sometimes. Reading through ads and content repeating the same misleading information and outdated facts over and over again can be frustrating. Unfortunately, we’re seeing misinformation tremendously around the topic of cotton and organic cotton. Let’s stop this madness together and get up to speed with accurate facts about this versatile crop.

Cotton is a highly complex topic. But in communication and marketing, we’re cutting down information to make it understandable for end consumers – and in fact, for ourselves as well. That is problematic because context is missing and we’re putting out information that is highly misleading because it’s oversimplified. Cotton is an ideal example of that.

Before we get into the details, we’re giving you two definitions so that we’re on the same page. According to the European Commission:

🔸 Misinformation is “verifiably false information that is spread without the intention to mislead, and often shared because the user believes it to be true.”1

🔸 Disinformation, also verifiably false or misleading, is “disseminated for economic gain or to intentionally deceive the public.”2

Ways misinformation turns into misleading claims

Erratic copying: Somehow numbers and details end up being changed over time and their source gets lost. It’s called erratic copying and many of us are guilty of it. An example of erratic copying is when people invert the terms “insecticides” and “pesticides”.
Mythic proportions: If you hear and see it everywhere, it has to be correct, right? Nope! We often tend to believe facts we’ve seen over and over again thinking that will make them legitimate. It’s scientifically proven that misinformation is ultra difficult to dislodge from our brains. Because when we see it again and again it continues to echo in our minds.34
Oversimplifying: You’re a journalist or copywriter? Then you’ll feel this: There are never enough characters to explain a topic in all its detail. Short online stories, tweets, and Instagram posts make it even more difficult to break down a topic. And it’s exactly here, that we oversimplify and leave out important nuances. The result is more often than not misleading content.

Help us set the record straight about cotton. Share this issue with EVERYONE who is dealing with information about cotton (and everyone else in fashion).

The socials of cotton

To define whether or not a certain method of agriculture is “sustainable”, we have to look at how it impacts the farmers. Why is that? Cause…

That makes it equally important and difficult to find consensus on the measurements and social improvements needed in the cotton industry. And it’s extremely difficult to make generalizations about social conditions.

So when people demand to stop growing cotton or move to other regions they don’t take into account how many people depend on it. It simply isn’t realistic. Instead of using social and environmental data to vilify cotton, let’s use it to find ways the communities and farmers depending on it can benefit from.

An additional note: In most parts of the world the extraction of natural resources for fiber production like cotton and hemp is set up in unequal systems within oppressed small-scale farming. Most farmers are self-employed and do not receive a salary, they earn their income by selling their harvest. Prices for raw materials are mostly based on so-called global minimum prices per weight, which like minimum salaries do not equal a fair income or a living income (this also applies to organically certified crops and crops where a Fairtrade premium is paid!).

We’ve got a special guest in our pro issue next week: Simon Ferrigno. He has been researching and writing about cotton since more than 20 years and contributed to the 2021 Cotton Report by the Transformers Foundation (which we’re citing a lot). In our interview, we’re diving even deeper with him on cotton and its impact scenarios.

Dont miss next weeks issue

As explained above, there is so much misinformation about cotton out there. We’ll explain why the claims “Cotton is a thirsty crop”, “25% of the world’s insecticides are used on cotton” and “Non-certified cotton is bad” are not correct and why you should remove them from your communication – if you are still using them.

1. “Cotton is a thirsty crop”

This claim has been around for ages and brands and media outlets copy and paste it over and over again. With one-third of all irrigated crops grown in regions with high water demand, blame for unsustainable water management should NOT be placed on a single crop or a specific subset of farmers. One-third of all irrigated crops face extremely high water stress. Water stress and scarcity is a serious problem for the planet, but taking the term "thirsty" and using it in isolation is misleading for several reasons:

🔹 Cotton is "a drought- and heat-tolerant crop well suited to climates with low rainfall."5

🔹 Cotton is not one of the largest users of irrigation water (blue water) in the world compared to other crops. It uses less irrigation water per acre than rice, wheat, corn, soybeans, and many vegetables.6

🔹 The claim that cotton is water-addicted is used out of context to portray cotton farming as an inherently unsustainable user of water. This is false, as many water-scarce regions are working to manage their agricultural sectors with an urgent need for improved water management. In fact, this data is misused and abused in non-scientific ways. This is also characterized as problem shifting.7

2. “25% of the world’s insecticides are used on cotton”

There are a number of variations of this claim out there. Sometimes it’s presented as cotton uses 24% or 25% of all insecticides globally, or 16% to 25% of pesticides (erratic copying alert!), and so on. Using global sales data about pesticides and insecticides is not appropriate, as sales data is not an indicator of actual usage, what types are being used, or conditions of use. Most importantly, global sales data does not capture impact. To understand the impact, we have to know how much is being used, which are being used, and their conditions of use.8

3. “Non-certified cotton is bad”

Some farmers may not be certified to a standard, yet implement the same or better agricultural practices than a certified farmer. Some farmers might choose not to seek certification for various reasons, including a lack of economic incentive (i.e., benefits of certification do not outweigh the high administrative and financial costs that are often associated with certification) among other factors.9

What about organic cotton, fair-fashion’s love affair?

Actually, much of the published information on organic cotton’s impact – including that on brand websites like “organic cotton uses 91% less water than conventional cotton” or “organic cotton creates 46 per cent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional cotton”- goes back to Textile Exchange’s organic cotton Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) from 201410 and is nowadays known to be not properly contextualized and holistically researched. Again, to see if a method of agricultural production is really better for the people and the planet, we need to look at how it impacts the farmers.11 Clear and comprehensive evidence supporting the significant savings (other than the prohibition of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides) or reductions of organic cotton does not exist, for now.12

It seems like a lot of input on cotton already but we’ve got more for you in our pro issue next week! As we said above – it’s impossible to put every detail into a short-form content piece. But with this issue and the one next week, you’ll have a great resource to check back to every time you want to talk and write about cotton.

Become a pro today

We’re looking forward to sharing our interview with Simon Ferrigno who has been researching and writing about cotton for more than 20 years. He also contributed to the 2021 Cotton Report by Transformer Foundation which we don’t get tired of citing.

All the best,

Tanita & Lavinia

European Commision (2021). Tackling online disinformation. https://digital-strategy. ec.europa.eu/en/policies/online-disinformation (accessed online 20.05.2023)

Diverse Authors (2021). Transformers Foundation. “COTTON: A CASE STUDY IN MISINFORMATION”. Page 46, Figure 4.

Fazio, L.K., Brashier, N.M., Payne, B.K., & Marsh, E.J. (2015). Knowledge does not protect against illusory truth. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General(144)5, 993–1002. https://www.apa. org/pubs/journals/features/xge-0000098.pdf (accessed online 20.05.2023)

Williams, A. (2018). Cotton's water requirements. ICAC 77th Plenary Meeting [Background paper].

Diverse Authors (2021). Transformers Foundation. “COTTON: A CASE STUDY IN MISINFORMATION”. https://www.transformersfoundation.org/cotton-report-2021 (accessed online 20.05.2023)

World Wildlife Fund (2022). Benchmarking of Sustainability Standards used in Cotton Production. https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/freshwater_practice/freshwater_news/?8825966/Benchmarking-of-Sustainability-Standards-used-in-Cotton-Production (accessed online 05.06.2023)

Diverse Authors (2014). LCA of Organic Cotton. http://farmhub.textileexchange.org/upload/library/Farm%20reports/LCA_of_Organic_Cotton%20Fiber-Full_Report.pdf (accessed online 05.06.2023)

Bates Kassatly, Veronica (2019). We need to talk about cotton. https://www.veronicabateskassatly.com/read/we-need-to-talk-about-cotton (accessed online 23.05.2023)

Bates Kassatly, Veronica (2022). Sustainable cotton myths vs. reality. https://www.veronicabateskassatly.com/read/sustainable-cotton-myths-vs-reality (accessed online 23.05.2023)

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