Steps Towards Achieving U.S. Cotton’s Sustainability Goals
August 22, 2018
Last year, the United States cotton industry set 10-year sustainability goals for six impact metrics in addition to goals for benchmarking.
These sustainable cotton goals can be achieved through innovation in technologies, investment in research and the sharing of best practices across the United States cotton belt. A number of efforts are underway as a cotton community working towards the same goals.
Research organizations and scientist are doing their part to spread this important information such as grower-faced webinars tailored specifically to meeting the new sustainable cotton goals.
To reduce energy use:
- Saving Energy in Cotton Gins – Paul A. Funk, USDA-Agricultural Research Service, July 2018.
To achieve all goals, especially soil carbon and erosion:
- Soil Health in the Mid-South: First Step – Feeding the Soil Microbes – Bill Robertson, University of Arkansas, June 2018.
To decrease water use:
- A Smartphone App for Scheduling Irrigation in Cotton – George Vellidis, University of Georgia, June 2018.
- Benchmarking Sustainability Performance Utilizing the Fieldprint® Platform to Document and Demonstrate Continuous Improvement – Lexi Clark, Field to Market, May 2018.
United States Cotton Sustainability Goals
- Increase soil carbon by 30%
- Increase land use efficiency by 13%
- Decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 39%
- Decrease soil loss by 50%
- Decrease water use by 18%
- Decrease energy use by 15%
- Enroll 2.5 million acres in the Fieldprint® Calculator
Earthworms and earthworm channels are a sign of good soil health.
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