In the Recorder issue on highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), environmental organisations are deemed to have painted “a grim picture: despite cotton occupying only 2.3% of global arable land, it is accused of using over 16% of the world’s insecticides and a significant 69.1% share of HHPs.”
ICAC says:
Cotton, while indeed cultivated on 2.3% of the world’s arable land, accounted for only 4.0% of global pesticide use and 10.51% of total insecticides used in agriculture worldwide from 2018 to 2022. Cotton’s share of 10.51% insecticide use is significant, but is a more modest figure than the 16% often cited.
The 16% claim actually comes from a 2019 report by the Environmental Justice Foundation which predates the ICAC study by some way, with data from a different time period. Newer data is welcome. It does not mean there are no problems, or there is no need to do better.
The data may have had a different source, or been based on sales rather than active ingredient weight. Equally, it suggests cotton might be reducing its use of chemicals. Which is a good thing if so.
Still, the narrative seems divisive, and unnecessarily so.
Cotton is the fourth highest user of HHPs, and third when it comes to insecticides
ICAC says the HHP use figure is 13%. Fine. But instead of rubbishing an old EJF report, why not look at whether this can be reduced to protect worker and pollinator health? And let’s not misdirect into discussing what other crops use. Let’s talk cotton. And here ICAC acknowledges cotton is the fourth highest user of HHPs, and third when it comes to insecticides.
China, Brazil, USA, and India use most of the insecticides classified as HHPs, the report says, with China using more than 40% of total HHPs in cotton.
If, as the paper says, cotton needs to have better policies, it is not a question of comparing cotton to other crops but of examining what HHP and other pesticide use in cotton means: how, why, and what its impacts are. And how to reduce them.
Sadly, this paper seems to be part data, part deflection. We know data is distorted and that misinformation exists (on all sides), but that should not stop us addressing cotton’s own problems.
