Positive land use
Australian cotton farming is land-use efficient, leaving more land for natural flora and fauna. Further, cotton farmers practise rotational cropping with nitrogen-fixing legumes, and other innovative agricultural techniques to ensure reduced pesticide and insecticide use, and increased soil health.
As compared to wool
The more land used for agriculture, the less land available for trees which can store carbon and for native plants and animals to live and thrive on. For this reason, land-efficient agriculture is of vital importance.
To produce 1 bale of wool, 44.04 hectares of land must be cleared or kept cleared, and grazed.
To produce 1 bale of cotton 0.12 hectares of land must be cleared and planted.
While both bales will be processed and usable fibre yield will be different than the bale weight itself, it is clear cotton that is significantly more land efficient.
Australia is largely desert and only has limited fertile land available for much of agriculture. The large majority of this land is used by inefficient industries like wool.
Rotational farming
Australian cotton farmers practice rotational cropping, meaning they grow different plants on their farms, and in the same fields. This practice is good for soil nutrition, pesticide reduction and soil disease prevention.
Cotton farmers in Australia particularly practise rotational farming which includes nitrogen-fixing crops like legumes – such as chickpeas. These plants fix and release nitrogen into the soil, acting as a natural fertiliser. This is important as cotton needs nitrogen.
On Renée’s farm, she grows cotton, chickpeas, mungbeans, popcorn, wheat and other plant fibres, proteins and grains. In between harvests, the ‘stubble’ of plants like chickpea stay in the soil to prevent erosion. (See below)
Soil health
To ensure soil health, Australian cotton farmers implement lower tillage practices. Tillage is a kind of soil disruption which helps remove weeds and prepare land for planting, but it can lead to soil erosion and damage, too.
Australia grows Bt cotton, not ‘conventional cotton’. This cotton is genetically modified to hold the biological soil bacterium ‘Bacillius thuringiensis’. These natural genes produce a protein which gives cotton inbuilt protection against the larvae of bollworms. This innovation has resulted in insecticide reduction of 97% per bale since 1993. ‘Bt’ is actually sprayed over organic crops and cotton, but it is more targeted within the plant than sprayed everywhere.
References
To produce one bale of wool… To produce one bale of cotton…
CIRCUMFAUNA
The Australia cotton industry has also reduced it’s bale land use requirements…
Australian Cotton Sustainability Report 2019
Australian cotton farmers practice rotational cropping…
Cotton Australia
Cotton farmers in Australia particularly practice rotational farming which includes nitrogen fixing chickpeas.
Grain Research and Development, Pulse Australia, NSW Department of Primary Industries
To ensure soil health, the Australian cotton industry implements lower tillage practices.
Cotton Leads
The industry also uses Bt cotton…
CSIRO
This innovation has resulted in insecticide use reduction of 97% per bale since 1993.
Australian Cotton Sustainability Report 2019
This protein is actually sprayed over organic crops and cotton…
Scientific American