The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Dhaka

Farmers in Bogra district have recently produced organic cotton for the first time without using chemical fertilizer and pesticide.

Instead of chemical fertilizer and pesticide, they used compost fertilizer and natural pesticide produced from urban organic waste and 'neem' respectively in the fields of organic cotton filed.

The initiative was taken to assess the economic feasibility of growing environment friendly organic cotton commercially in Bangladesh, Director of Waste Concern, one of the leading waste management organizations in the country, Iftekhar Enayetullah told BSS here today.

Waste Concern in partnership with Mohipur Agriculture Training Institute (MATI) with the support of UK-based 'People Tree' produced organic cotton under a pilot project on one hector of lands this year.

Bangladesh Cotton Development Board provided good quality of cotton seeds, required manpower and supports to the pilot project. The success achieved from one hector of lands proves that organic cotton will open a new opportunity in the world market for the Bangladeshi farmers, Iftekhar said.

Executive Director of Waste Concern AHM Maqsood Sinha said the weather in Bangladesh is quite conducive to producing organic cotton side by side with the traditional cotton.

"Bangladesh Cotton Develo-pment Board has already given us its 10 hectors of lands in Bogra district to produce organic cotton in a larger scale", he said adding, the production cost is higher for this variety of cotton with less environmental impact than the traditional one.

"In the light of the free trade concept, farmers could get higher price of their produce than that of the traditional variety or even more with the increase in use of organic inputs for producing organic cotton in the years to come", Sinha said.

Production of organic cotton are presently encouraged all over the world as the conventional cotton production uses more chemicals in per unit area than any other crop and accounts in total for 16 percent of the world's pesticides.

The chemicals, used in the production of cotton, degrade the soil quality side by side with polluting air and surface waters. Residual chemicals may irritate consumers' skin, he said.

On the other hand, he added, organic production systems have low impact on environment, replenish and maintain soil fertility, reduce the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and fertilizers, and build biologically diverse agriculture.

In addition to this, organic agriculture protects the health of people and the planet by reducing the overall exposure to toxic chemicals from synthetic pesticides that can end up in the ground, air, water and food supply, and that are associated with health consequences, from asthma to cancer.

At present, Waste Concern is planning to harness carbon trading through offsetting green house gas by replacing fossil fuel based chemical fertilizer and using low emitting technology for ginning and weaving of cotton.

In 2007, Sinha said, 265,517 bales of organic cotton were produced in 24 countries and world-wide production was growing at a rate of more than 50 percent per year.