Little Green Kid
Aren't beautiful blue skies, green spaces as far as you can see and crisp clean air all wonderful things? We all love the best and want to leave this legacy for our future generation. We at Little Green Kid couldn't agree more.
Our mission is to make a difference to our environment by living in harmony with this environement while promoting choices towards a healthier lifestyle today and a brighter tomorrow.
Consider this, Over 2/3rds of the Indian population lives in rural India mostly engaged in agriculture. Many of these people are simple farmer folk working from early morning before the sun rises to late in the evening, tilling the land, irrigating it, tending it and reaping a harvest that comes to our doorstep. India is on track to produce 7.5 million tons of cotton this year (2014-15). To put that in perspective that's about a million full grown elephants or 24 million tigers or 38 billion T-Shirts. Thats's 38 followed by 9 zeros.
Wow, that's a lot of T-shirts isn't it. Now of this lot, only 0.6% or a paltry 45,000 tons or 0.2 billion T-Shirts are made of organic cotton. You may wonder "Why is that"?
Research shows us that ,surprisingly Organic cotton can be just as profitable for the farmer as GM Cotton. In fact the production cost is much lower, leading to lower input cost and therefore lower debt potential for the farmer. Now you may be wondering, what's going on here.
Cotton (including Bt Cotton) faces 160 different kinds of pest on its way to harvest resulting in 25% of the total pesticide consumption in the country. Yes, 25% of the pesticide goes for just one crop. In fact an IIM Ahmedabad study shows that cost of pesticides and fertilizers constitutes a large chunk of the cost per hectare (One hectare is 10,000 sq mts) followed closely by the high cost for Bt Cotton Seeds (if the farmer choses to use Bt Cotton).
Organic cotton on the other hand uses only organic pesticides and fertilizers resulting in 38% lower production costs. So, you may think hah! its plain to the eye, why doesn't everyone then just plant organic cotton. No paying high seed costs, no expensive pesticides. A cleaner crop.
Our experience shows that the answer to this lies in informed consumer choice.
Dear customer, you hold in your hands the power to make a difference. Every time you make a choice to buy an organic cotton product you are casting a vote to sustainability and encouraging another farmer to chose profit over debt. Your decision to consume responsibly allows a farmer to make a living while being in harmony with the environment.
By reading this you have already taken the first step. The step towards having the right information to make the right choice. The choice towards blue skies and green spaces.
To all of you, from all of us at Little Green Kid - Thank you and we wish you happy times.
Rashmi Vittal
Founder and CEO
References
- Cotton Production likely to surpass record output for the second straight year - Economic Times Article, September 10th, 2014
- Long-term trial in India shows: Organic Cotton is competitive with GM crops - FiBL.org, December 5th, 2013
- Economics of Bt Cotton Vis-a-Vis Non-Bt Cotton in India - IIM Ahmedabad Study, Gandhi et. al - September 2009
- Yield and Economic Performance of Organic and Conventional Cotton-Based Farming Systems - Forster, Andres et. al. - December 2013