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Pick Your Cotton Carefully

July 2nd, 2007

In 2001, the UN FAO and World Health Organisation estimated that developing countries spend US $3 billion annually on pesticides. However, one-third of these pesticides did not meet internationally accepted quality standards.

Pesticides are toxic by design and pose a serious risk to human health and the natural environment. Every year, pesticides are estimated to cause tens of millions of cases of accidental poisoning. Many of these poisoning cases are in the developing world where education and awareness of the dangers is lacking.

Symptoms of pesticide poisoning can range from short-term headaches and nausea to convulsions, unconsciousness or death. Longer-term effects include damage to nervous systems, respiratory and skin diseases, cancers and birth defects.

Children are also often the first victims of pesticide poisoning, even if they do not participate in spraying, due to the proximity of their homes to cotton fields or because of the re-use of empty pesticide containers.

In some major developing countries, such as India and Pakistan, cotton production accounts for over 50% of all pesticides used inagriculture. One drop of the pesticide aldicarb - commonly used on cotton - absorbed through the skin, is enough to kill an adult.

Monocrotophos, banned in 7 countries and used restrictively in another 12 countries, is the most heavily used pesticide in India even though it was identified as the cause of paralysis in children living in cotton growing areas.

The nerve agent deltamethrin, probably the most extensively applied cotton pesticide in the world, is applied to cotton in over half of cotton producing countries. Traces of deltamethrin have been found in human breast milk in a village on the edge of a major cotton production area in South Africa.

The Environmental Justice Foundation is working on international campaigns for pesticides and to clean up cotton production. EJF promotes alternatives such as organic cotton production which is the only farming system by where cotton is produced entirely free of chemical pesticides – and thereby without the risks that such chemicals pose to human health and the environment.

EJF believes that the dangers associated with pesticides is too high a price to pay and calls on all buyers of cotton to Pick Your Cotton Carefully and choose organic, fairly traded cotton.

The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) believes environmental security is a human right. EJF trains and supports environmental and human rights defenders in the global south to peacefully investigate, expose and bring about lasting solutions to abuses they face. EJF relies on donations from people who care about the importance of our work to give marginalized, impoverished communities and international voice. Learn more about EJF’s campaigns at www.ejfoundation.org

To view the award winning film: White Gold: the true cost of cotton click on the link below.