When Brown is Green
January 5, 2012 Gifts brought back from exotic lands – that’s one benefit of having a parent or a spouse involved in the international cotton trade. You and I know know that if we don’t carve out a bit of shopping time when we’re abroad, we just may face a twinge of disappointment when we return home.
During my most recent cotton voyage – to the 8th Brazilian Cotton Congress, in São Paulo last month – I didn’t even have to leave the Expo Center to buy one lovely and unusual gift to bring back home. That was thanks to Embrapa, the agricultural research arm of Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture.
At its Cotton Research Center, whose principal activity is developing improved varieties, Embrapa has launched four unusual new commercial cultivars – brown, sapphire, ruby and green – whose fibers require no bleaching or dyeing and are adapted for high-speed spinning. These naturally colored cottons can reduce manufacturing costs for a textile mill, as well as eliminate the discharge of some toxic chemical byproducts of dyeing.
At Embrapa’s booth at the Cotton Congress, these colored cottons and the finished goods made from them sure did catch my eye. And the all-cotton handbag I bought, made with four different natural colors, turned out to be a big hit at home!
That colored cotton didn’t escape the notice of a group of cotton industrialists visiting from Sudan, either. The visitors discussed with Embrapa officials the prospects of growing those colored cottons back in their home country.
Certainly, at present, such colored varieties of cotton comprise a small niche market. But the potential for market development may be quite promising.
They believe so at the Brazilian headquarters of Syngenta, the multinational ag-chemical and seed giant. In its New Business division, Syngenta is studying the commercialization potential of those colored cottons and the prospects of acting as a link between growers and mills.
In cotton’s battle for consumer loyalty, natural coloring is a quality synthetic fibers can’t match. With environmental consciousness on the rise, naturally brown, sapphire, ruby or even green cotton can all be “green” in the eyes of consumers ready to vote with their wallets. And, anyway, it’s fun to shop for loved ones when we’re far away.
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