The Great Cotton Experiment
This is a test to grow our clothes differently.
This is a test. It’s late in the growing season, and the first puffs of white appear speckled on the landscape. On this farm, plants grow between what would normally be orderly monocropped rows, and workers in beautiful, brightly colored saris inspect each plant by hand. India is the world’s largest producer of cotton, including organic cotton. But this farm isn’t like the others, and that’s because it’s part of a test: a test to grow our clothes differently.
Growing food and fiber with industrial techniques and harmful chemicals has devastated our climate in just over a century. We believe there’s a better way—Regenerative Organic (RO) farming practices that have the potential to help stop climate change. In an experiment that was the first of its kind, we partnered with over 150 farms in India to grow our first crop of Regenerative Organic Certification Pilot Cotton.
Because healthy soil traps carbon, this type of farming has the potential to draw down more greenhouse gases than other farming methods. If we switch to Regenerative Organic practices, we could turn our agricultural system from problem to solution. As the highest organic standard, Regenerative Organic supports people and animals working together to restore the health of our land to create a future as bright as these colorful, buzzing farms.