Cotton...the fabric of our lives

I am watching this fantastic new show I discovered on Netflix. It is called Eco Trip and the host follows a product through its life cycle to truly measure the impact the supply chain and production of things like chocolate or cotton have on the environment. I love this show! It really demonstrates how we should consider the impact of every single decision we make, especially in terms of things we purchase. I am still a student, so I love things that are free or cheap, but watching the episode about cotton production is starting to make me wonder.

I might want to buy a bag of v-neck white cotton t shirts for under $10, but cotton is one of the most harmful of crops in terms of chemical use and waste. I've learned by watching Eco Trip that 70% of the cotton crop is not usuable for creating textiles and in fact is either consigned to be waste, fed to livestock, or made into cottonseed oil. The waste seems somewhat unavoidable. Cotton is my favorite textile and I can't imagine giving it up. I sleep in it, I clean things with it, I dry myself off with it...but here is the real question. If a cotton farmer uses a separate chemical to kill bugs, another to kill weeds, and another to "ripen" the cotton for harvest rather than waiting for a hard freeze, how is it possible that conventional cotton is cheaper than organic cotton, which doesn't use any chemicals? Now, I'm not a cotton farmer, but I do know that chemicals cost money. So who is paying the bill?

Cotton is subsidized by the U.S. government, just like corn, the giant grass that has found its way into every single processed food available in the center of the supermarket. But, I don't want my taxes to be paying for chemicals. I want my money to make it worth the cotton farmer's while to not use chemicals. And so, I will use the power of my pocketbook and buy organic cotton wherever I can find it. If Adam Smith had anything right, demand will eventually conquer laziness.