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Helping growers understand the importance of sustainability-enhancement programs.
Nathan Reed and Jesse Flye have been doing their part to help educate clothing brand and retailer representatives about sustainable cotton production by inviting them to their farms and local gins.
Now, they’re also lending their efforts to help growers better understand the importance of their participation in sustainability-enhancement programs like the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol and the Better Cotton Initiative.
“Fortunately, I’ve been able through Cotton Incorporated, USDA and the National Cotton Council to have quite a bit of interaction with brands and retailers,” said Reed, who farms in Lee and St. Francis Counties in Arkansas. “I traveled to China and Dubai a couple of years ago to speak to cotton mill owners.
Many clothing brands and large retailers have set goals of obtaining 100% of their raw materials from suppliers who can document that they produce those fibers using environmentally sustainable practices.
That should give cotton producers a leg up because they are providing a naturally grown fiber rather than one created in a manufacturing facility with petroleum products. But growers have to be able to back up their claims.
“The U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol is brand new,” said Nathan Reed, a cotton producer who farms in Lee and St. Francis Counties in Arkansas. “It was a program created by farmers for farmers in response to brands and retailers and the cotton industry needing proven sustainably-sourced cotton.