Regenerative Farming is Key to Fashion’s Sustainable Future

Fashion brands from high-end to high streets have introduced regenerative agriculture practices into their supply chains to boost sustainability. These farming practices work in harmony with nature. Reducing chemical fertilizers and pesticides, minimizing tillage and reintroducing traditional crop rotations are no mere trend—they are essential for the apparel sector’s transition to a more sustainable future.

For everyone involved in fashion supply chains, now is the time to move beyond a “do less harm” approach to one where there is a net positive outcome that benefits both our planet and the people who depend on its good health to earn their living.

Textile supply chain stakeholders concerned by soil degradation

CottonConnect has recently undertaken research among farmers, implementing partners, employees and ginners in Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan to find out what they consider to be the most important environmental, social and economic issue with regard to sustainable cotton and sustainable cotton supply chains. The results showed that soil health has become the most important environmental factor for sustainable cotton, increasing from third place in a similar survey conducted in December 2020 and overtaking climate change and chemical use.

Those on the front lines of global cotton supply chains understand better than anyone that we are living through a soil crisis. Modern industrial agricultural practices—including mono-cropping, chemical fertilizer usage and pesticide spraying, tree felling and wildlife habitat removal—have destroyed almost half of the world’s most fertile soil. As this layer of productive topsoil thins, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to grow crops for food and fabrics.

The challenges of keeping soil healthy

While vital to maintaining the cotton crop’s quality and yield, keeping soil healthy is a more difficult process than many people realize. Soil is one of the most complex living ecosystems on Earth. A handful of healthy soil contains more life than the human population of the planet. These vast numbers of organisms must be kept in balance because they all bring different benefits.

The climate emergency is also exacerbating soil degradation. As temperatures rise, wind patterns and rainfall are becoming more intense, resulting in increased soil erosion. Topsoil is simply blown away or run off into rivers or other water bodies.

In turn, soil infertility is worsening the climate and biodiversity crises. Healthy soil captures and stores large volumes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As soil degrades, we lose this essential carbon sink, so the world warms more, and the weather becomes increasingly chaotic, making farming even more difficult. Poor soil also drives biodiversity loss by negatively impacting the vegetation that provides food and shelter to many animal species.

Implementing sustainable solutions in the fashion supply chain

The truth is that we cannot carry on farming as we are. It would result in the long-term degeneration of our farmland, threatening the future of the textile industry and putting the livelihoods of all the people working in supply chains at risk.

That’s why regenerative agriculture is so critical: it offers a farming system that addresses our climate and biodiversity challenges in a holistic manner. Working to keep nature’s ecosystems in balance, this way of farming is based on the obvious but under-appreciated truth that fertile soil is the basis for all terrestrial life. Grounded in many pre-industrial traditions, it prioritizes healthy soil.

In 2021, we introduced the REEL Regenerative Cotton Code to enhance agro-biodiversity, enrich soils, optimize water management, and develop ecosystems. To put this code into action, in 2022 and 2023, we launched a regenerative cotton pilot initiative in Gujarat, India, to train over 350 smallholder farmers on regenerative agronomy, empowering them to cultivate cotton using economically viable, environmentally sustainable, and socially acceptable principles.

The first year of comprehensive training sessions and demonstrations laid the groundwork for a lasting shift in agricultural practices. It looked at methods including agro-forestry, biochar production, intercropping, compost or vermicompost use for soil management and bio decomposition using rotavator and cotton shredder. While moving to regenerative practices is a significant adjustment for cotton farmers initially and will need additional support and a longer timeframe to fully understand the impact, a preliminary assessment of the first year of the pilot showed substantial progress.

Three-quarters of farmers reported embracing practices to enhance biodiversity, including initiatives such as installing bird perches and identifying and preserving beneficial insects. Ten percent of farmers shifted to preparing and applying homemade bio-pesticides, replacing chemical pesticides. The results indicate a significant 23 percent reduction in the use of chemical fertilizers by project farmers compared to control farmers. We also used the Cool Farm Tool to analyze the project’s effectiveness in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with an assessment showing that emissions per acre from the project farms were approximately 23 percent lower than those from the conventional control farms.

It may still be the early days for our regenerative cotton pilot, but we are committed to a long-term vision of empowering farmers with knowledge and resources in order to achieve a future where sustainable agriculture becomes the norm. We know that this will have considerable benefits to the communities involved as well as contributing to a global shift towards regenerative practices.

The way forward

To futureproof fashion supply chains, we must farm in a way that gives back to nature as much as it takes. An agricultural focus on soil health will bring so many wider benefits, like greater crop yields, boosted farm profitability, better social outcomes for farming communities, improved water management and enhanced climate resilience. The reality is that regenerative farming is not a fleeting trend but the most important next step on fashion’s sustainability journey.

Alison Ward is the chief executive officer of Cotton Connect.