Have you thanked your cotton farmer?
Most of the cotton in the world is produced in China (6.9
metric tons) and India (6.6 metric tons) with the US next (2.8 metric tons)1.
In America, cotton seed for planting is produced in high tech labs, genetically
modified with bacteria genes to be more resistant to herbicides. It is mostly grown in pockets in Texas,
California, the southern Mississippi valley and several southern states. Most
of the farms are very large and the harvesting is done by GPS guided machines. Technological
improvements since the 1950’s have increased the yield per acre threefold. Cotton
is the number one value added product produced in America and is the most used
fiber in the world.2
After harvesting and ginning, American cotton is sent to
other countries that have lower wage workers for processing. Many of shirts made
end up back in America for retail sale.3
Farmers see about sixty cents (10%) of the money that comes from retail
sale of a $6 shirt. 3 Since
cotton needs a lot of processing to make it useful, that amount is more reasonable
than some other farm products. Being the number one fiber used worldwide,
cotton, and cotton farmers are very important to our economy and daily living.
Without cotton farms, there would be no cotton towels, t-shirts, jeans,
underwear, sheets, blankets, couches, cotton balls, q-tips, bandages, and on
and on. Suffice it to say, our lives would be very different and quite a bit
less comfortable without it.
Thanks to all our hard working cotton farmers and everyone
else who makes cotton t-shirts et al possible!
1.
Cotton - Production by top countries 2014 |
Statistic (Statista)
http://www.statista.com/statistics/263055/cotton-production-worldwide-by-top-countries/
2.
The Story of Cotton (National Cotton Council)
https://www.cotton.org/pubs/cottoncounts/story/upload/The-Story-of-Cotton-Hi-Res-642k-PDF.pdf
3.
COTTON: Planet Money Makes A T-Shirt (Parts 1-5)
(YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYa4zneKbeY
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