The agricultural industry sits in a particularly delicate position in the conversation on sustainability — being crucially important as it provides mankind with the means for survival while also being a core contributor to the climate issue. In a recent Earth System Science Data study, it was estimated that agriculture contributes to roughly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
With this revelation, organisations and nations active in agriculture are looking to innovate, using bleeding-edge technology as a key driver to achieve sustainability goals. At the forefront of this shift stands the Brazilian cotton industry. It provides an exciting showcase for the role that technology can play in finding innovative solutions in a sector where sustainability is crucial.
Cotton — Traditional industry, modern problems
As with many other agricultural goods, cotton faced a global supply chain crisis in 2022. According to McKinsey’s fashion industry report, businesses in Asia especially felt this sting, with many citing material shortages as a key disruptor.
Creating a sustainable cotton supply while facing ever-increasing demand proves a daunting challenge. This is especially true in the case of Brazil: the world’s second-largest exporter of cotton.
Brazil’s cotton industry has experienced explosive growth, increasing its exports by 15 times in the last two decades alone. Despite this heavy expansion, the Brazilian cotton industry has established itself with a firm focus on sustainability. It is now the world’s largest producer of sustainable cotton, with at least 84 per cent of total production certified by the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), an internationally recognised non-profit group.
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To achieve these accolades, Brazil has fostered transparency across all nodes in the cotton supply chain. This comes with a firm understanding that sustainability can only be ensured when there is accountability and proper backing by scientific data. By recognising this key pain point, Brazil is continuously innovating and deploying technological solutions to address this age-old issue.
Tech-powered transparency
As with all industries, transparency is driven by accurate and readily available information. In Brazil, this translates to the traceability of cotton bales from start to finish. The nation has employed the use of QR codes and barcode systems to track cotton bales and provide easy access to crucial information. This would include information like the bale’s field of origin, sustainability certifications and in-depth quality details just to name a few.
The use of technology for traceability was especially highlighted this year. In 2022, the Sou de Algodão (which means “I’m made of cotton”) movement launched the SouABR (ABR being the Brazilian acronym for Brazilian Responsible Cotton) programme.
This was the first large-scale tech-driven traceability initiative in Brazil’s textile chain and was designed to offer all members of the supply chain transparency and to encourage more sustainable choices from consumers.
The SouABR programme heavily utilises the latest in blockchain technology to record, track and store immutable data on cotton. This data can provide information on the fibre’s origin and the production processes of each item all the way down to the end consumer. Furthermore, this data will communicate that the cotton has ABR social and environmental certification, which acts as an endorsement that the product adheres to the highest standards of sustainable cotton.
Additionally, users on all levels of the supply chain will soon be able to access information like this through the Brazilian Cotton Growers Association (ABRAPA) smart app, set to launch in the near future. The app enables bale-by-bale tracking via bar code and QR code, offering full transparency of Brazilian cotton from farm to port to cotton growers, textile industries, traders, and retail brands worldwide.
A brighter future for all to see
We can only begin tackling the issues of agriculture’s damaging effects on the environment once we can track and assess all the processes which contribute to them. Using the Brazilian cotton industry as a role model, we can see that the implementation of tracing technology has provided invaluable and widely visible insight into sustainability.
The digitisation of information makes it easily accessible and auditable — which ensures efficiency, reliability, and sustainability at all stages of the supply chain. With the more widespread adoption of innovative tracing technology across agriculture, the sector can reinforce accountability and take responsibility for the sustainability of not only the human population but the planet.
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Image credit: Marcelo Duarte Monteiro
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