The Destruction Caused by Industrial Cotton with Patagonia Founder, Yvon Chouinard

I sat down to write my article for today and turned on the TV for background noise.  As I flipped through the channels I saw something on UCTV (a station of the University of California system) about green business and decided to turn it on.  It turns out it was Reflections of a Green Business Pioneer, an Oppenheim Lecture by Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia at UCLA from this past January.

I was intrigued, impressed and inspired by his whole story and philosophy but what really intrigued me was his discussion about the destruction caused by industrial cotton farming.  Here are the lessons I learned about industrial cotton farming from listening to Yvon Chouinard:

• In 100% cotton clothing on average only 73% is cotton. The rest is chemicals put on after.
• Formaldehyde is one of those chemicals (formaldehyde is a carcinogen)
• The worst possible fiber to be making clothing is 100% industrially grown pure cotton
• 25% of the world's pesticide use is used on cotton fields and it only occupies 3% of the world's farmland so it uses an inordinate amount of chemicals
• To defoliate the plants so the mechanical pickers can pick the cotton they use a chemical similar to agent orange with which we destroyed Vietnam
• The cancer rate in central valley (California) is 10x normal because of crop dusters flying over all the time
• Cotton fields are a killing zone - There's nothing alive, no birds, no weeds, no bugs
• There's no runoff from the central valley. All the water runs into sumps in the valley and you get a lot of selenium and the fields get very salinated.
• There's these guys sitting by the sumps on lawn chairs with shotguns and cannons to scare away the water fowl because if they land on those ponds and they ingest some of that water they end up with chicks with 2 beaks & 3 legs - literally!

Next time you are at a store trying to decide if it's worth the added expense to purchase organic cotton, remember this list.  I'm sure you'll agree...it's worth it!

To learn more about Patagonia, their business model, history and mission for the future, watch the videos of his lecture.