Cotton

The plant

The cotton plant can measure up to ten meters in a natural state. When it is cultivated, one limits his size to one or two meters in order to facilitate the collecting of it. Herbaceous or woody, the cotton plant pushes in the tropical and subtropical areas arid. It can live ten years in a wild state (" cotton pérenne"), whereas it is generally exploited in the shape of annual plant when it is cultivated. With flowering large white or yellow flowers with five petals appear. Then capsules with the thick and rigid walls develop. When they open, they let escape from seeds and flocks of cotton covered with a bunch with Fiber S blanchâtres and silky which can measure between 2cm and 5cm length according to the varieties. It is used as fabric.

The most known varieties of cotton are the Gossypium arborum and the Gossypum herbaceum . These two cotton shapes with originating short fibers gave rise to many varieties, but are not exploited almost any more as such, because their fibers are too short. The Gossypium barbadense , cotton of Peruvian origin, counts for approximately 6% of the worldwide production of fibers. Its culture was in particular introduced in Egypt and constitutes, today through " quality; Jumel" , one of best cottons of the world in term of quality and length of fibers. The Gossypium hirsutum which accounts for approximately 81.5% of the worldwide production of fibers is originating in South America.

History

Cotton is used to manufacture light clothing since millenia in the areas with the tropical climate. Certain researchers affirm that it is probable that the Égyptien S knew cotton there is more than 12.000 years front J. - C. and one found cotton fragments going back approximately 7 000 years in caves of the valley of the Tehuacán, with the Mexico. Archaeological evidence made it possible to know that the men domesticated species different of cotton plant in India and in South America thousands of years ago. Naturally coloured cotton dating of more than 5000 years was discovered on the northern coast of Peru. The oldest hard copy that one knows speaks about Indian cotton. Cotton is indeed cultivated in India since more 3 000 years and the Rig-Veda, written in 1 500 av. J. - C. mentions it. Thousand years later, the Greek Hérodote mentions Indian cotton: “Over there there are trees which push in a wild state, whose fruit is a wool much more beautiful and soft that of the sheep. The Indians make clothing of them. ” At the end of, the cotton, from which the name comes from Arabic ( el kutun ) via the Castilian (" el algodón" - Cf Métanalyse), was spread in the hotter areas in America, Africa and Eurasia. Cotton was one of the first cultures of the European colonists in America, of which the first plantation in the colony of Jamestown date of 1607. The cotton industry which had developed well in India was affected by the Industrial revolution British and its inventions which allowed a mass production at a cheap rate the the United Kingdom. In 1764, the English James Hargreaves builds the first spinning machine industrial to several spindles baptized “Spinning Jenny”. A few years later, the English Richard Arkwright invented the machine to be combed and slip by, and it is finally Samuel Crompton which made the synthesis of these two trades in 1799 by creating the “Mule” (mule) which had a productivity approximately 40 times higher than the wheel used before. In 1805, Jacquard developed one first weaving looms automatic functioning with large perforated cards which allowed the realization of varied reasons.

The European countries managed to copy the richness of the Indian fabrics almost completely ceased their trade with it. Only England, by the means of the English Company of the Eastern Indies, continued this trade, while limiting it to the importation of the basic commodity gross and either of fabrics; particularly when the administration of India échoira to him in 1858. The second outlet of Indian cotton was primarily Chinese. The weaving of this vegetable fiber will begin again under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi. Thereafter, the colonization of the American continent brought with it a wave of emigrants from Europe who knew the culture of cotton and installed on this new territory of important plantations.

Currently, cotton remains the textile fiber most largely used in the world in spite of the appearance of synthetic fibers.

Culture of cotton

The culture of cotton requires one long vegetative season, much of Sun and total a 120 days sprinkled to ensure the growth then a dry time at the end of the vegetative cycle to allow the déhiscence of the capsules and to avoid the rotting of fiber. These climatic conditions generally meet under the tropical and subtropical latitudes. Cotton supports the moderate climates provided that it does not freeze.

The culture of the cotton plant is mainly rain (sub-Saharan Africa, most of the cultures of the United States, of India, of the Popular republic of China). The rain culture is theoretically possible as of 400 mm of annual precipitations. However, in the facts, cotton can be cultivated without irrigation only with one pluviometry higher than 700 mm/an, in order to stage the interannual variability of the rains and the irregularities of their distribution. Thus, 40% of the surface cultivateds out of cotton (Egypt, Ouzbékistan, Pakistan, Syria) are irrigated.

To fight against the parasite S of cotton, the farmers of the United States used a long time products containing of the Arsenic, which contributed to the pollution of the grounds.

The Asian varieties of cotton plants are Gossipium arboreum and Gossipium herbaceum , the American cotton plants are Gossipium hirsutum and Gossipium barbadense .

Economic situation

| | | |} Figures FAO 1995, in thousands of tons

Indian cotton

Cotton has cultivated in the Indian Sous-continent for more than five thousand years. The hot and wet climate lends itself to it, this culture requiring of the higher temperatures with 15°C during most of its cycle. It is in the States of the center of the République of India (Maharashtra, Gujerat and Tamil Nadu) which it is particularly developed, country producing in 1992 a total of 1 617 000 tons of cotton fibers per annum. The most current variety is that of herbaceous cotton. After flowering, the ovary of the plant is transformed into a capsule containing 20 to 50 seeds, each one surrounded by 10 000 cotton fibers. These fibers are insulated, pressed in balls and are finally carded, spun or combed. Reserved for the manufacture of the candles, the first cotton wicks appear in England in 1298. But the industrial use of Indian cotton starts only at the XIXe century, after the invention of the weaving looms automatic. The first spinning mills settle with Bombay. First of all thrives, this industry is slowed down by the British colonists who prefer to send raw cotton in England and to make it transform in the workshops of weaving of the Lancashire. The boycott of the English manufactured goods and a call in favor of local weaving belongs to the " program non-coopération" that lance Gandhi in 1920. Since its independence in 1947, the Republic of India started again its textile industry. The natural dyes replace the chemical baths, sources of pollution. Today, India produces 12 meters of woven cotton per capita and account with the number of the exporting countries behind, in particular, the the United States and the China.

African cotton

Because of an exceptional Chinese request and unfavourable climatic conditions in the producing areas (the United States), the price of cotton went up in 2007. An oxygen balloon for Africa, which finally seems to have future prospects for its production. The price of the cotton book, which underwent a continuous decrease between 1997 and 2001 passing from 80 to 35 hundreds, went back to more than 60 hundreds.

Genetically modified cotton

Genetically modified cotton represented in 2006 the quarter of the surface cultivateds in the world and probably one the third of the worldwide production. Cottons GMO are produced today by the majority of the large producer countries: China, the United States, Australia and India. Brazil authorized it in 2006. In Africa, except for the Republic of South Africa, no country produces today (2006) cotton starting from genetically modified varieties. Only Burkina Faso has a legislation today authorizing the installation of cotton tests genetically modified in controlled medium. For the third consecutive year, the INRA, Burkinabe agronomic National research institute, will carry out tests with the principal firms holders of the techniques of transgénèse (Syngenta, Dow Elanco and Monsanto). Other countries, in particular Mali, are in the process of finalize the texts allowing the installation of tests.

Monsanto, supplier of genetically modified seeds made gleam with the Indian farmers cotton of more important harvests and better quality and requiring a less quantity of pecticides, since cotton BT thus presented was to produce its own insecticide. Many peasants, enchanted by these promises, let themselves convince to buy these genetically modified seeds, in spite of their price four times higher than that of the traditional seeds. With their great despair, since the miracle was not carried out, quite to the contrary. Contrary to the promises of Monsanto, the fibers of cotton BT are shorter than those of the local varieties, the outputs are weaker, and of new diseases and the parasites developed, requiring increasingly large quantities of chemicals. The peasants were involved in debt, certain were driven back with the suicide. The other alternative for number of them: to sell their grounds to refund their debts, contracted near the merchants of seeds and the banks, which do not want from now on to any more to lend money them. Another catastrophic consequence: reduction in the biodiversité.
Source: Documentary a world to be sold - GMO, seizure on agriculture , of Bertram Verhaag and Gabriele Kröber, Arte, 2002

Equitable trade

In April 2005, association Max Havelaar France lance the first equitable cotton: cotton producers of West Africa (Mali, Senegal, Cameroun, Burkina Faso) enter a step of Equitable trade and are certified by Max Havelaar (cf). The direction of this new certification must be specified:

There existed already the clothing of cotton produced according to the rules of the equitable trade, and distributed in France (in particular in the network Artisans of the World). In this case, it is the transformation of the cotton and its importation which answer the criteria of the Equitable trade: the spinning mill of cotton and the clothes industry of clothing are made by small producers engaged in a long-term step with organizations of equitable trade of North; the importation of clothing is made by a power station of importation of equitable trade. The production of cotton itself escapes largely the criteria from the equitable trade.
the label of Max Havelaar relates to him to it production of cotton, not of clothing. It is thus the first stage of the die which is labellisé. The following stages of the die are not subjected to the same criteria: the actors of the remainder of the die (spinning mill, weaving, clothes industry, importation) textile “are approved” by Max Havelaar. This approval, controlled by quarterly declarations and specific physical audits to ensure the traceability, urges the supplier to respect the standards of ILO. The distributers of this equitable cotton clothing are the super ones and hyper gone, the shops and the mail-order selling; that is to say: Armor Lux, Célio, Cora, Eider duck, Hacot and Colombier, Hydra, Kindy, Redoute. They have a simple license agreement with Max Havelaar. They keep the same delivery system as for their other not labellized products.

It should be noted that this label of Max Havelaar was the subject of a controversy in the medium of the equitable trade, because it was accompanied by an agreement with the French company Dagris, shown by its detractors to encourage the transgenic cotton culture in West Africa (where cotton GMO is currently not very present). The use of GMO is in contradiction with the principles of the Equitable trade, because of the economic dependence which it involves for the small producers and of the consequences on the environment. This said, Dagris, Max Havelaar and the groupings of the producers decided, jointly, to exclude all varieties from GMO of the productions profiting from the label " cotton équitable".

Independently of that, certain recent companies of mode (such as Ideo, Veja, Seyes,…) currently dies develop where the social and environmental criteria (cultivated cotton following the standards of the organic farming) relate to at the same time the production of cotton and the various stages of its transformation.

Symbolic system

the Noces of cotton symbolize the first year of Mariage in the French folklore.
cotton is the 1st level in the progression of the sporting Sarbacane.

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