World Cotton Day: History, Significance & Reasons to Support the Most Important Natural Fibre

World Cotton Day is an excellent opportunity to show your support to the world’s most important natural fiber. The main purpose of this day is to celebrate the benefits of cotton, starting from its specialty as a natural fiber to the numerous advantages people get from its cultivation, conversion, trade & consumption.

History of Cotton & World Cotton Day: 

• How much old cotton is? No one knows exactly!! But we’ve also found its evidence in the Indus Valley civilization where it was being cultivated, spun & woven into cloth about 5000 years ago. 

• However, because of the industrial revolution in England, cotton was first spun by machinery in England around 1730 and the invention of the cotton gin in the U.S.A. shown the way for the important place cotton holds in the world today.

• World Cotton Day was inaugurated by the WTO in Geneva on October 7, 2019. It was started by the Group of Cotton-4 countries namely Benin, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mali to highlight the importance of cotton as a global commodity as it is produced all over the world.

Significance of the Day:

• Celebrations marking the day aim to promote sustainable trade policies and to enable developing countries to benefit from every step of the cotton value chain.

• It will also serve to shed light on the challenges faced by cotton growers across the world as cotton is important to least developed, developing, and developed economies worldwide.

• This day also gives recognition & exposure to cotton and all related stakeholders in production & trade and coordinates with donors & beneficiaries and strengthens development assistance for cotton.

• On this day, we can enhance new collaborations with the private sector and investors for the cotton related industries and production in developing countries and promote technological advances, as well as further research and development on cotton.

Reasons to Support Cotton- Cultivation: 

• Cotton is a global commodity grown in about 75 countries across 5 continents and traded worldwide. Our country is the 2nd largest producer of cotton in the world after China.

• Being a drought-resistant crop, it’s ideal for arid climates and occupies just 2.1 % of the world’s arable land, still, it meets about 27% of the world’s textiles need. 

• In the case of employment generation, a single ton of cotton provides year-round employment for five people on average. So, it also provides help in poverty alleviation across the globe.

• Additionally, its fiber is used in textiles & apparel, food products are also derived from cotton-like edible oil and animal feed from the seed.

• It is also eco-friendly as it biodegrades quickly compared to other synthetic alternatives, decreasing the number of plastics entering our waterways and helping to keep our oceans clean.

Apart from the above discussion, the Indian Government implemented a Cotton Technical Assistance Programme (Cotton TAP-I) for seven African countries namely Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and also Uganda, Malawi, and Nigeria, during 2011-18. 

Let’s Show Your Support to Cotton Growers on this World Cotton Day!!