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Today, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides,
and chemical fertilizers are applied to the cotton plant throughout
its growing cycle. This is what we mean when we say "conventionally-grown"-a
term we at Coyuchi find rather ironic, since it's only been the
convention for fifty years.
During those fifty years, cotton has become an ever more vital and
versatile agricultural commodity. Cotton fiber-durable, comfortable,
and affordable-is woven into fifty percent of all textile products.
Unfortunately, this makes the following statistics all the more
significant.
While only 3 percent of the world's arable
land produces over forty billion pounds of cotton annually, it is
the most heavily sprayed field crop on the planet. Twenty-five percent
of all insecticide is applied to cotton. In the US, as many as 200
types of chemicals might be applied to a single plant in one season-that
translates to one third of a pound of chemicals for every pound
of cotton fiber. In California, one and a quarter pounds of agricultural
chemicals are used to produce the conventionally grown cotton in
a single set of queen-sized sheets.
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