Cotton is not sustainable. Organic or not, cotton is one of the most water greedy agricultural crops and in the world and in Australia, it has vastly disproportionately, compared to other crops, contributed to the destruction of our river systems. Industrial hemp on the other hand can be grown on degraded land, uses little water and with today's available technology for processing it can be made into a fibre near the equal in versatility to cotton and definitely surpassing cotton in durability. In its industrial applications, its versatility far surpasses the simple clothing needs of humanity in that the oil from its seeds can make a plastic that is stronger than that from fossilised oils and indeed can replace stacks of applications for which crude oil is currently considered essential when in fact it isn?t. Cotton contributes to the destruction of the planet, organic or not. Hemp on the other hand will contribute to saving the planet, if people use it.

Hi jan H
Have you heard of 'dont shoot the messenger'??

There is nothing wrong with cotton--ITS the method of farming thats at fault.

In the 70's--Cortaro Cotton--employed a newly formed company to
boll-weevil proof their 10,000 hectare farms.

This was done by "radio-broadcasting" the frequency of a pesticide
onto a photograph of selected areas.
RESULT the boll-weevils turned to mush--and the cotton was 98% seed headed.

The company UKACO thus won the contract for many more adjacent farms--as well as other US farm regions.

MORAL--we shouldnt be talking 'sustainability'--we should instead be talking of making farms ABUNDANT.

[hemp is a fairly sub-standard and non-winter crop].

Hi folks. I am not sure if mcpherson is being sarcastic when they say "MORAL--we shouldnt be talking 'sustainability'--we should instead be talking of making farms ABUNDANT." but i sincerely hope so.

Is the cotton plant or the manufacture of clothing out of cotton inherently evil? Of course not, but to grow such a crop in the most inappropriate of natural environments is going to lead to eco-social headaches.

as Jan H quite rightly points out, merely, there ARE alternatives. to view some please check out this website:

http://www.greensourceorganic.com/

and go to the products link.

Cheers,

Bernie.

hi barnzus--it simply is not true that cotton cannot be grown other than water intensive.

Perhaps we should then also query why we might need environmental activists in schoolrooms--if all there is to learn is what peter cullen stated 20 years ago--"if you stop the source--then i guess the water doesnt flow ..."

'abundant' was referring to deep soil...and not the water supply.

thanks.