Cotton Council International t/a Cotton USA Liberty House 222 Regent Street London W1B 5TR Number of complaints: 3

Date: 12 March 2008 Media: Magazine, Poster Sector: Agricultural Agency: Kugel Limited

Ad
A magazine ad and a poster for Cotton USA stated "SOFT, SENSUAL AND SUSTAINABLE, IT'S COTTON USA!"

Issue
Three complainants challenged the term "sustainable" because they believed cotton was a pesticide- and insecticide-intensive crop and could seriously deplete groundwater supplies in the High Plains region of the United States where much of the country's cotton was grown. One complainant challenged whether US cotton subsidies had a negative impact on cotton farmers in the developing world, particularly in West Africa.

The CAP Code:

3.1;7.1;49.1;49.2;3.2;49.3

Response
Cotton Council International (CCI) said they believed US cotton production, whether produced conventionally or organically, met reasonable and generally accepted definitions of "sustainability". They quoted the United Nations definition, the US Environmental Protection Agency's definition and a US Congress definition of the term. They said whilst definitions could vary, they believed the basic principles remained constant: economic viability, protection for the environment and social responsibility.

CCI said conventionally produced (rather than organic) cotton currently accounted for more than 99.99% of US cotton production. They stated that conservation tillage, which was difficult or impossible to use in organic cotton production, was used significantly in conventional US cotton production. They said this reduced greenhouse gas emissions and saved about half a billion metric tonnes of soil per year and over a billion litres of tractor fuel. They also said conventional cotton required less land, water and labour to be produced than organic cotton, and also used nitrogen fertilizer rather than the large amounts of animal manure used by organic cotton production, which was high in nitrates and could result in nutrient run-off which damaged local lakes and rivers. CCI claimed that, since 1930 the amount of land devoted to cotton farming in the US had dropped by 30 million acres, while yields of cotton had risen by 6 - 8 million bales, due to sustainable development practices which had freed up land for conservation and other uses. They said that "organic" and "sustainable" were not equivalent, because organic cotton alone could not sustain and supply the global demand for fibre now or in the future, as it was too land intensive.

CCI maintained that cotton was a natural, renewable, biodegradable and sustainable fibre. They said US cotton was sustainable because it met the guidelines of the Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade Act of 1990, and was governed by strict regulations for production agriculture put in place by the Food and Drug Association (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for a food crop. They said the alternative to efficient and sustainable global production of conventional cotton fibre was synthetic chemical fibre production, and that synthetic chemical fibres used petroleum as a base, which was non-renewable and therefore not sustainable in the long term. CCI provided various data on pesticide and water use in cotton production which they believed demonstrated that US cotton was "sustainable" on these grounds. They said that there was an overwhelming move to the planting of biotech or genetically modified (GM) cotton in the US, and that biotech varieties used less pesticide. They said today's pesticides were more targeted, less toxic and less persistent in the environment than previously and that beneficial insects were also now being managed better in cotton cultivation. They said results from independent testing showed US cotton satisfied internationally recognised Eco-Labels standards and easily passed the regulations for foodstuffs. They sent records from the Bremen Cotton Exchange to show that.

CCI also said that, whilst the High Plains of the US was a broad geographical region of altitude which extended into parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas, when discussing cotton production in the United States, the "High Plains" normally referred to the cotton growing regions on the far southern part of the High Plains around Lubbock, Texas, where about 25% of US cotton was grown. They said that integrated pest management was used in this region (e.g. computer-aided monitoring, biological controls, precision satellite technology, agriculture and cultural practices) and 86.5% of the cotton in Texas was biotech (GM). They submitted that all the evidence they had provided indicated that cotton grown in the USand in the High Plains of Texas was not an "insecticide intensive crop".

CCI also maintained that cotton had been wrongly cited as a water intensive crop. They said it was very drought tolerant and used about the same amount of water as other major crops. They provided evidence to show that about 65% of the US crop was produced without any irrigation, and irrigation was used for 35%. They said much of the irrigation that was used was water-efficient drip-irrigation and "low energy precision irrigation". CCI sent information with respect to the High Plains of Texas in particular, and said that 30 - 40% of the crop in that region was irrigated, of which about 20% was irrigated using water-efficient methods. They believed their evidence indicated that cotton grown on the High Plains of Texas did not seriously deplete groundwater supplies as suggested by the complainants.

CCI further argued that, the undeniable difficulties of cotton farmers in West Africa were the result of many factors including corporate monopolies in the region and the rejection of biotech (GM) cotton by farmers there. They said the Cotton Council took corporate social responsibility seriously and was involved in the US government programme known as the West Africa Improvement Project (WACIP).

Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted the term "sustainable" was used and understood by governmental and non-Governmental organisations, public bodies and researchers in many and varying ways, and that the term was often subject to political and ideological argument. We understood that the best practice guidance on environmental claims in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) "Green Claims Code" stated that, although sustainability was a widely used term, it was not defined by a common methodology when applied to products and therefore claims containing the words "sustainability" or "sustainable" should be avoided.

We acknowledged that cotton production in the US was a highly technical industry and that environmental management played a significant part in that. We also acknowledged CCI's argument that pesticide and insecticide use on US crops was down from 1990 levels. However, although we noted some peer reviewed scientific publications had concluded that GM cotton could potentially offset some of the environmental impacts of intensive agriculture by reducing pesticide use, we also noted there was reputable scientific opinion that was concerned about the longer term impact of GM crops on biodiversity and the environment. We noted that GM crops had only been planted commercially in the US for ten years, and many scientists did not consider ten years to be sufficient time to assess the long-term impact of such crops. We considered that evidence that the current switch to GM cotton in the US was responsible for less pesticide use than previously was not equivalent to evidence that US cotton production was "sustainable".

We noted CCI's submission that cotton was not a water-intensive crop, but also noted that it was described  both as a water intensive crop and a less water intensive crop in reputable scientific literature. We were therefore concerned that there was a division of informed and scientific opinion as to the relative water efficiency of cotton as a crop.

We noted that the High Plains region of the US, including portions of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, was underlain by the Ogallala aquifer, also known as the High Plains aquifer, a large shallow underground water table. We understood that the aquifer was a groundwater storage reservoir, which was renewable, but which replenished slowly. We noted that a US Geological Survey report (2000) on this aquifer considered that it provided the water to irrigate crops on about 27% of irrigated land in the United States and withdrawals from it amounted to around 30% of the nation's groundwater use for irrigation. We further noted that this report stated there had been a 6% overall decrease in the volume of water stored in the aquifer over the past 50 years, but that in two states in particular, Texas and Kansas, water storage had declined by much greater amounts, 27% and 16% respectively, in that time. We noted that the report concluded that where water was being withdrawn from the High Plains aquifer at rates greater than it was being replenished this would "have a significant impact on the agricultural economy of the region" in future. We noted that, according to data provided by CCI, parts of Texas and Kansas, together with parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico were major cotton growing areas on the High Plains. We accepted CCI's submission that 30 - 40% of Texas High Plains cotton was irrigated and that this was done using water-efficient drip irrigation and "low energy precision irrigation" (which could also be a water efficient method) for a proportion of that. Nevertheless, we understood that the High Plains aquifer was used to provide irrigation for cotton crops on the High Plains of Texas and Kansas. We concluded that on this point of water conservation, based on the available evidence, it was not possible to establish with certitude that US cotton production on the High Plains region of the US was "sustainable".

In relation to the third point about US subsidies having a negative impact on cotton farmers in the developing world, we acknowledged that CCI believed international aid organisations had misrepresented the impact of the US cotton programme on global economics, and that US cotton subsidies were not responsible for the difficulties of cotton farmers in the global South, particularly West Africa. However, we also noted that the World Trade Organisation had opposed US cotton subsidies in 2005, and considered that CCI's view that the US cotton industry had no negative impact on local economies elsewhere therefore did not command universal acceptance. We concluded that the claim "SOFT, SENSUAL AND SUSTAINABLE" in the ad misleadingly implied the sustainability of CCI's cotton was universally agreed.

We noted the advice given by the UK Department Defra in their "Green Claims Code" document, which stated that green claims should not "... be vague or ambiguous, for instance by simply trying to give a good impression about general concern for the environment. Claims should always avoid the vague use of terms such as 'sustainable', 'green', non-polluting' and so on..." We concluded that, because there was no universally agreed definition of the term "sustainable" and there appeared to be a significant division of informed opinion as to whether cotton production in the US could be described as "sustainable" or not under the various available definitions, the meaning of the term "sustainable" in the CCI ad was likely to be ambiguous and unclear to consumers. We concluded that CCI had not justified the claim.

Action
The ads should not appear again in their current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)