Abstract
Cotton, the most important cash crop of India plays a dominant role in its agrarian and industrial economy. In India, the area under cotton cultivation is the highest in the world and industry provides livelihood to over seven million people. However, cotton productivity in India is low and farmers rely on heavy dosage of fertilizers and insecticides/pesticides to control insects, pests, weeds and growth regulators. Organic cotton farming is the process of growing cotton without the use of synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), is a concept to grow cotton with judicious use of water, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, to reduce the environmental footprint of cotton farming. The objective of the study was to quantify the environmental benefits associated with the production of organic seed cotton and BCI seed cotton compared to the conventional production of seed cotton, using Life Cycle Assessment approach. The aim was also to identify hotspots across the cultivation process. The study was based on primary data collected from farming sites managed by Arvind Group under contract farming model for BCI cotton and organic cotton cultivation in the state of Maharashtra, India. When compared with the conventional cotton system, the organic and BCI cotton show considerable advantage for several impacts categories.
Highlights
It clearly reflects that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results of organic cotton is better than Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) cotton and conventional cotton production for all the environmental impacts categories
BCI cotton is a holistic approach to sustainable cotton production which covers all three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social and economic
The region of India considered in the study has been battered by multiple droughts and considered amongst the least developed with farmers having poor socio-economic living conditions due to rising cost and declining production yield
Summary
Cotton is an indispensable part of today’s human life and India is the second largest producer of cotton in the world, producing around 18% of the world’s cotton [1]. It has the largest area under cotton cultivation in the world (8.9 Million hectare), representing about 25% of the world area under cotton cultivation [2]. Bansal Arvind Limited, Naroda Road, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
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