Cotton Genomics and Genetics 2025, Vol.16, No.2, 80-94 http://cropscipublisher.com/index.php/cgg 80 Research Insight Open Access Best Practices for Sustainable Cotton Farming Systems Kaiwen Liang Agri-Products Application Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resouces, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China Corresponding email: kaiwen.liang@hitar.org Cotton Genomics and Genetics, 2025, Vol.16, No.2 doi: 10.5376/cgg.2025.16.0009 Received: 01 Feb., 2025 Accepted: 12 Mar., 2025 Published: 01 Apr., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Liang, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Liang K.W., 2025, Best practices for sustainable cotton farming systems, Cotton Genomics and Genetics, 16(2): 80-94 (doi: 10.5376/cgg.2025.16.0009) Abstract Cotton is a major fiber crop in the world and plays an important role in the agricultural economy. However, conventional cotton production faces sustainability challenges such as excessive use of pesticides, water waste and soil degradation. This study focuses on "Best Practices in Sustainable Cotton Cultivation Systems", reviews the current background and problems of global cotton production, explores agronomic practices, socioeconomic strategies, technological innovations and policy support mechanisms to achieve sustainable development, and analyzes the practical effects based on a case study in Gujarat, India. The study found that agronomic practices such as integrated pest management, soil health maintenance and water-saving irrigation can effectively reduce chemical inputs and maintain or increase yields; strengthening cotton farmer training, ensuring labor equity and expanding market channels can improve cotton farmers' livelihoods and enhance the industry's risk resistance; the application of precision agriculture, biotechnology and digital platforms is improving cotton production efficiency and environmental performance; and policy support such as certification standards, government subsidies and RandD investment is crucial for the large-scale promotion of sustainable cotton practices. Based on real data from case studies, we summarize the successful experience of sustainable cotton cultivation and make recommendations for future expansion, strengthening climate adaptability and deepening international cooperation. The research aims to provide scientific basis for major cotton producing countries and relevant stakeholders, and to help the green transformation and sustainable development of the global cotton industry. Keywords Cotton; Sustainable agriculture; Integrated pest management; Soil health; Water-saving irrigation 1 Introduction Cotton is widely grown in more than 80 countries around the world and is an important cash crop and raw material for the textile industry. According to statistics, the global cotton production in 2019-2020 was about 24.339 million tons, and it increased to about 26.095 million tons in 2021-2022. The main cotton producing countries include China, India, the United States, Brazil, etc., among which China and India are at the forefront of the world. For example, India's cotton planting area is about 11.91 million hectares, accounting for 36% of the world's total, of which the lint cotton production ranks second in the world, second only to China (Nagaraj et al., 2024). Despite the huge output, traditional cotton production has brought severe challenges to the environment and society. First, cotton consumes a lot of water. In arid areas, large-scale irrigation has caused rivers and lakes to dry up frequently, and ecological disasters such as the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Central Asia are partly attributed to cotton field irrigation (Abdullayev, 2010). According to statistics, 97% of the water in the Indash River in Sindh Province, India is used for irrigation purposes, including cotton. Secondly, the problem of excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers is prominent. Since the second half of the 20th century, the amount of pesticides applied per unit area in cotton fields worldwide has far exceeded that of other crops, which not only harms soil and water quality, but also threatens farmers' health and biodiversity (He, 2023). In my country, the amount of nitrogen fertilizer applied to cotton in Xinjiang has increased from 150 kg/ha in the 1980s to 598 kg/ha in 2020, and the accumulated amount of residual film in farmland has reached 255 kg/ha, both of which are significantly higher than the national average. Thirdly, long-term continuous cropping and improper tillage have led to soil degradation and accumulation of pests and diseases, and salinization and organic matter decline in cotton fields are common (Chen et al., 2021). Climate change has exacerbated these risks, and unstable rainfall and extreme high temperatures have posed a threat to cotton production. For example, a multinational study pointed out that
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjQ4ODYzNA==