Cotton

The world's cotton importers have shifted towards a single dominant exporter at a time of rising weather risk. Brazil shipped 3.37 million tonnes in 2025/26, far ahead of the United States, and its Centre-West cotton belt is in El Niño's dry zone. Conab and StoneX both expect each hectare of Brazilian cotton to yield less this season.

Fashion's sourcing data and its fibre data are moving in different directions. Companies in Textile Exchange's benchmark raised the share of five fibres sourced through standards and certification programmes to 72% in 2025, while polyester took most of the growth in fibre output in 2024. A cotton shortfall driven by El Niño would show which measure defines progress.

Global cotton supply is projected to fall short of demand independently of El Niño. The USDA's August figures put the gap at about 5.3 million bales, and prices rallied on supply concerns before falling back by about a tenth. For spinners that contracted near the peak, a weather shock later this year would compound an existing loss.

A four-year European Union-funded project coordinated by Fairtrade International has concluded after reaching more than 9,500 cotton farmers and 700 textile manufacturers across India, with a primary focus on Tamil Nadu. The initiative delivered digital sustainability tools, capacity-building programmes, and market links between Indian suppliers and European buyers.

A new certification route now brings previously ineligible textile fibres into the Global Standards system, subject to independent verification against recognised third-party criteria. Global Standards, the non-profit behind the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), has developed the standard from decades of certification experience, and eligibility now extends past the organic sector.

Fragmented pilot projects have long defined regenerative agriculture efforts in Pakistan's cotton sector, but mounting climate and market pressures are exposing the limits of that approach. Drawing on a recent industry roundtable, Abou Bakar, Country Representative – Pakistan, CottonConnect, explains what a coordinated national framework would look like, and why farmer incentives and traceability now sit at the centre of that conversation.

Potassium fertilisation has increased cotton yields by up to 70% in deficient soils, with fibre strength and elongation identified as the quality parameters most sensitive to potassium availability. Arkansas field trials across two growing seasons have reinforced current fertilisation recommendations and introduced new tissue-testing thresholds to support in-season crop monitoring.

Cotton is the raw material on which India's textile and apparel export ambitions rest, and for the second time in a year the government has moved to lower its cost for processors by removing import duties. The measure runs until late October this year. What it does not do is resolve the underlying tension between farm-income protection and industrial competitiveness that has made the duty a recurring site of policy conflict.

The EU's mandatory separate textile collection requirement came into force in 2025, backed by recyclability targets for 2030. What the policy framework has not accounted for is that the larger share of fibre loss in a cotton garment occurs before any consumer touches it. A new study traces a single t-shirt across its full global supply chain to quantify where that loss actually goes.

Across Latin America, cotton sectors are navigating a modernisation wave that is producing sharply unequal results. The technologies exist; so does the research capacity. What remains fragile is the institutional scaffolding that translates both into farm-level change. Dr Marcelo Paytas, Director at INTA – Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, has spent years working at that fault line, and his diagnosis is precise.