By Clint Thompson
The Georgia Cotton Commission (GCC) continues to encourage producers to join the Cotton Trust Protocol. It’s an initiative that helps promote the sustainability efforts of cotton producers across the country.
“The point of the program is to tell a story to the consumer. We’ve talked many times over the past 10 years how interested consumers are in where their food comes from. Fiber is the same,” said Taylor Sills, executive director of the Georgia Cotton Commission. “Folks want to know where it comes from and how it’s produced. Cotton has a great story to tell compared to its synthetic competition. American cotton, in particular, has a fantastic story to tell. To help folks like us tell that story, people have to get enrolled in the program. We hope it will be beneficial to them down the road.”
According to the Southeast AgNet website, the Trust Protocol helps farmers document and showcase their land management and environmental stewardship practices while helping them achieve continuous improvement related to certain environmental sustainability measurements.
Each Georgia producer in the Cotton Trust Protocol commits to tracking their progress towards improving soil carbon health while seeking reductions in soil erosion, overall land use, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The Trust Protocol seeks to have more than 50% of all U.S. cotton registered as Trust Protocol Cotton by 2025.
According to the UGA Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development, cotton was grown on 1.4 million acres in 2018 and produced a farm gate value of $792.7 million.