Farmers

Cotton is the raw material on which India's textile and apparel export ambitions rest, and for the second time in a year the government has moved to lower its cost for processors by removing import duties. The measure runs until late October this year. What it does not do is resolve the underlying tension between farm-income protection and industrial competitiveness that has made the duty a recurring site of policy conflict.

Across Latin America, cotton sectors are navigating a modernisation wave that is producing sharply unequal results. The technologies exist; so does the research capacity. What remains fragile is the institutional scaffolding that translates both into farm-level change. Dr Marcelo Paytas, Director at INTA – Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, has spent years working at that fault line, and his diagnosis is precise.

A new lifecycle assessment released today by Cotton Incorporated reframes how the fibre's environmental performance is measured and contested. The study produces a net-negative carbon footprint at the farm gate while leaving open significant questions about the methodological assumptions and farming system consistency that underpin that finding, with implications that extend well beyond the fibre itself.

Latin American cotton operates across a wide spectrum, yet rarely as a coherent regional bloc. Argentina exemplifies this tension: a significant cotton producer whose structural fragmentation mirrors the wider regional condition. José Luis Spontón, researcher at INTA's Reconquista Experimental Research Station (EEA Reconquista), examines what is holding the sector back and what associative models from Brazil and Paraguay suggest about the path forward.

India's cotton sector has a productivity problem, a quality problem and a market-credibility problem. On Tuesday, the Union Cabinet approved a Rs 5,659.22 crore mission that proposes to address all three simultaneously, through seeds, ginning modernisation, traceability infrastructure and a national branding programme. What the mission does not address may be more revealing than what it does.

Organic cotton grown by smallholders in Tanzania under the Cotton made in Africa Organic standard has recorded one of the lowest environmental footprints in global cotton production, new research has confirmed. The findings, drawn from a comprehensive lifecycle analysis, showed that the absence of synthetic pesticides, artificial fertilisers, and irrigation kept emissions well below industry norms.

Cotton's farm-level production standard has been strengthened with a sharper regenerative agriculture focus, following BCI's release of Principles and Criteria v.3.2. The updated standard introduces targeted improvements to selected indicators, enhances auditability across diverse growing contexts, and advances BCI's broader ambition to operate as a fully regenerative standards system.

India’s cotton story is fraying. Once the world’s largest producer, it now harvests less from more. Fields are shrinking, farmers are quitting, and seeds have stood still. The crop that once wove India’s textile strength now risks unravelling under policy paralysis, poor yields, and disjointed priorities from farm to factory.

Ethiopia’s cotton sector, once a pillar of African textile production, is being re-energised through renewed coordination between farmers, industry, and policymakers. At the centre of these efforts is Tsegaye Abebe, Executive Director of the Ethiopian Cotton Association (ECA), who outlines how the country can convert its vast but underutilised cotton potential into a sustainable and competitive national asset.

The Better Cotton Initiative has introduced a traceable product label, launched on World Cotton Day, aimed at helping retailers and brands communicate verified sustainability claims. The label coincides with a refreshed identity and annual report that underscores measurable progress in farmer incomes, pesticide reduction, and women’s empowerment across global cotton-producing communities.