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Organic and GM cotton find ways to co-exist

In a way, cotton farmers agree that it’s everyone’s right to grow the crop the way they wish but those that have chosen to grow organic product are looking for better ways to co-exist with those that haven’t. In a talk at Textile Exchange’s Organic Cotton Roundtable in Hamburg, Germany, farmers, breeders and those in organizations representing farmers and breeders came up with their views on the challenges of co-existence of organic and GM cotton.

Michael Sligh, Program Director for the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), who has been farming organically on a large scale since the 1970s, said the current cotton environment isn’t one of co-existence. He said organic cotton community is doing everything one knows to protect the farming community from unwanted pesticides and GMO drift.

Organic cotton farmers do everything they can to avoid the scenario, but sometimes nature prevails and what would have been organic cotton, as it was farmed as such, has to get turned back over to the conventional market and not bring in a premium. Last year, the organisation lost 22 per cent of its organic cotton product because of contamination. And while that translates to a hit on the bottom lines, the industry must have felt it harder to put up a face to the small farmers.

 
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