Better Cotton India Impact Report notes pesticides, water use, and costs down for its Indian cotton farmers

Cotton sustainability initiative Better Cotton has found that pesticides, water use, and costs have all gone down for its Indian cotton farmers in its 2023 India Impact Report. This industry progress has led to improvements to farmer livelihoods and equality, according to the report.

The Better Cotton 2023 India Impact Report states that overall pesticide usage in ‘Better Cotton’ cotton farming has dropped by 53% from the 2014-17 seasons, used as a three-season average, to the 2021/22 season, the organisation announced in a press release. Better Cotton attributes this to capacity strengthening trainings on an Integrated Pest Management system and its awareness campaigns. Notably, the amount of farmers using the toxic chemical Monocrotophos has decreased from 41% to 2%.
 
Water usage for irrigation has been reduced by 29% between the baseline years and the 2021/22 season, according to the report. The greenhouse gas-causing practice of Nitrogen application decreased by 6% per hectare during the time period. 

Better Cotton farmers saw their costs per hectare drop by 15.6% during the report’s time period, excluding land renting costs. This was made possible by reducing land preparation and fertiliser expenses and has led to an improvement in quality of life for the farmers who also saw their cotton lint yield per hectare average at 650kg, 200kg per hectare more than the national average.
 
The Better Cotton Programme launched in India in 2011 and since then, the organisation has expanded its network of farmers from tens of thousands to close to one million. The organisation has also seen an increase in the number of women Better Cotton Field Staff across India, from around 10% of total farmers in the 2019-20 cotton season to over 25% in the 2022-23 cotton season.