Organic cotton brought back to North Carolina

NASHVILLE – A US t-shirt printer has teamed up with a nearby apparel producer to bring organic cotton back to North Carolina for what it says is the first time in recent memory. The USDA-certified organic cotton will be used to produce blank t-shirts that will be printed using low-impact water based inks that do not contain plastisols.

The two companies TS Designs Mortex Apparel first met with experts in state agriculture back in 2006 to discuss their plan for growing organic cotton but were informed that ‘it could not be done’.

But now, five years later, a usable volume of USDA-certified organic cotton is being harvested in North Carolina on two North Carolina farms – Hickory Meadows Organics and Parrish Enterprises –which together have grown 65 acres of organically cotton that will be harvested by the end of the month.

TS Designs and Mortex said they worked with these farms to grow organic cotton in their home state of North Carolina as a solution for what they considered a broken supply chain. Until now, TS Designs’ organic cotton T-shirts have been made at Mortex, but due to a shortage of US-grown organic cotton, they have been made from overseas yarn.

“The journey of growing organic cotton in North Carolina began about five years ago when we were told it couldn't be done,” said Eric Henry, president of TS Designs. “We started by making T-shirts from cotton grown in the state with a line called ‘Cotton of the Carolinas’, knowing that eventually we could do the same thing with certified organic cotton grown here.”

“Conventional textile wisdom says you can't create an apparel line from one farm, but we did it,” said Brian Morrell, president of Mortex Apparel. “This organic cotton harvest is the next milestone and represents significant opportunity in bringing a positive impact to both jobs and the environment in our state.”

Mary Wilks of Carolina Precision Consulting in Rocky Mount spearheaded the technical efforts of ensuring compliance to certified organic standards from seed to gin.

“Cotton has been grown successfully in this region of North Carolina for many generations,” Wilks explained.  “Hickory Meadows Organics and Lewie Parrish combined both traditional production methods such as timely cultivation and local produced manure/poultry litter fertiliser and modern integrated pest management to successfully grow this organic cotton. These farms were fortunate in 2011 to have timely rainfall, adequate heat and a light frost for clean defoliation. We look forward to fine tuning and potentially expanding the organic cotton production in 2012.”

Growing organic cotton will have additional benefits for Hickory Meadows and Parrish Enterprises. “Genetically-modified seeds commonly used in non-organic farming are costly – over $500 a bag – and farmers cannot save their seeds for the next season. However, most of the varieties used by Hickory Meadows and Parrish Enterprises were less than $100 a bag, and the farms can re-use the seeds obtained after ginning their cotton,” said a statement from the companies.

Roland McReynolds is the director of Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, an organization that advocates on behalf of organic and sustainable farmers. “Farmers can free themselves of the ever-escalating prices of genetically modified cotton seed,” McReynolds said. “Over-reliance on GM seed has led to an epidemic of super-weeds, and thanks to the efforts of Mr. Watson, Mr. Parrish, and TS Designs, we have a chance to get off that treadmill.”