It is no surprise that cotton is one of the most used crops in the world and the idea that cotton is an organic product is understandable.
After all, it is grown from the earth, it is a traded commodity, and humanity has been growing and utilizing cotton for ages.
However, did you know that no other crop uses more chemicals to cultivate cotton? As a matter of fact, the vast majority of cotton that is available is not natural as they have been genetically modified and saturated with many chemicals.
Cotton crops account for about 2.
5 percent of cultivated land in the world but it also accounts for about 25 percent of all the pesticides that are used.
To put in another way, for every pair of jeans and t-shirt that is produced, about 1 pound of pesticides and chemical fertilizers are used to produce those items.
This makes conventionally grown cotton the very definition of a chemically dependent crop.
Organic cotton, on the other hand, uses agricultural methods that sustain soil fertility and causes hardly any damage to the environment.
What about the pests that hinders cotton cultivation? How do organic cotton farmers deal with insect pests as well as weeds? The answer lies in the development of innovative techniques that do not employ the use of harmful chemicals.
Organic farmers typically cultivate natural enemies of these pests such as cultivating insects that prey on the pest insects or by planting what are known as "trap crops" to bait the pests away.
The timely introduction of these methods eradicates pests naturally and causes no harm to the environment.
As mentioned before, conventionally grown cotton has numerous pesticides, insecticides, and other harmful chemicals that lie within the fibers.
Continual skin contact with these chemically laden fibers can aggravate a number of allergies and trigger allergic symptoms especially if your child suffers from asthma or is sensitive to chemicals.
Johnson & Johnson states that a baby's skin is thinner, more fragile, and less oily than adult's skin.
This means that your baby's skin is much more sensitive to these harmful chemicals.
Also, your baby's skin is less resistant to the harmful environmental substances especially if the skin is irritated.
This means that your baby is at a greater risk of pesticide related health problems than you are.
One factor that many parents bring up is that there are conventionally grown cotton products out on the market that is labeled "EPA-Approved.
" However, the problem is that the pesticides that were used to cultivate the cotton were registered with the EPA long before any proper research was conducted to see if there were any adverse affects of employing such pesticides.
In other words, the EPA approved these pesticides before extensive research was done that linked these chemicals to cancer and other diseases.
All of this is not meant to scare you into buying clothing made from organic cotton for your child.
Many parents still buy clothes for their children made from conventionally grown cotton and that does not mean they are not good parents or they love their children any less than those who choose to buy organic cotton clothes.
The purpose in writing this and making this available to you is to make sure you have the proper information in case you are questioning whether or not buying organic just a trendy phase.
It is not.
It is a great way to make sure you are providing the best option for your child as well as supporting the work of organic farmers and their livelihood.