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California Cotton & Climate Coalition
C4 is evolving the health of California’s croplands through cotton
We Care About VIABILITY
VIABILITY
We care about the ability to grow crops and protect rural jobs in California for years to come within the context of a changing climate in a landscape in need of rehydration.
Climate
We care about agriculture’s role in relationship to climate and how the way we manage landscapes can sequester or release carbon.
FARM-FORWARD
We care about sourcing farm forward and domestically, in a traceable and transparent way that is not the norm in the fashion and fiber industry.
PARTNERSHIP
We care about learning and growing together: farmers, agronomists, scientists, nonprofits, technical service providers, gins, merchants, spinners, mills, and makers working pre-competitively to see how we can increase the health of land while bringing products to market.
Our Coalition
We’re invested in relationships and we honor how much we need each other.
Let’s Change the Way Cotton Is Grown
Our on-farm goals:
- Increase soil biology and life
- Increase soil carbon
- Decrease the use of synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides
- Create a model for a California-based, biologically focused, cotton farming system that prioritizes soil health in both a conventional and organic farming context
Practices we’re trialing
Strip/Reduced tillage
Multispecies cover crop
Compost application
Animal integration (sheep eating the cover crop)
Reduction of synthetic nitrogen
Reduction + removal of herbicides
The Research
What we are testing (soil carbon + soil biology)
In collaboration with the Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems and technical service providers soil monitoring and analysis is occurring to provide an understanding of the effect of practices known to build soil carbon. Soil testing and analysis is an on-going function of this work, and central to the coalition’s commitment to better understand carbon flows between atmosphere, biosphere and pedosphere.
Carbon flows are currently not well represented in textile life cycle assessments; we are working as a community of scientists, farmers, brands, and NGOs to remedy this and bring greater transparency to the movement of carbon molecules.
Water
Two tests to understand water use efficiency. Water infiltration (establishes porosity); Water holding capacity (soil sponge)
PLFA
A test to assess biological diversity and the Fungal:Bacterial ratio.
Water
Two tests to understand water use efficiency. Water infiltration (establishes porosity); Water holding capacity (soil sponge)
PLFA
A test to assess biological diversity and the Fungal:Bacterial ratio.
Soil carbon sequestration
Several tests to indicate soil carbon sequestration and state change. Soil Organic Carbon; Soil Organic Matter; PoxC; C:N ratios; Bulk Density (porosity); % Microbial Biomass; % Microbial Active Carbon (determines how efficiently your soil microbes are using carbon); Organic C:N; Total Carbon; Total Organic C.
Soil respiration rate
A test to understand how much CO2 is being generated through cellular respiration by the root tips and the biology (an aerobic process supported by soil carbon and porosity).
Haney test + Nutrients/Minerals
A test to understand the quantity of soil nutrients available to soil microbes, and nutrient + mineral tests: Total N; Total Organic N; Nitrate N; Ammonium N; Total Inorganic N; Available N, P, K.
Aggregate stability
A test to tell us how well the biological community is creating the glues that hold healthy soil structure.
A Verification,
not a Certification
- The Climate Beneficial™ Cotton program is designed to scale the implementation of carbon farming practices within the working landscapes of California's Central Valley. We aim to benefit growers, rural communities, our shared environment, and the textile brands who are working to enhance direct relationships with the people who grow food & fiber.
- The program’s emphasis is to enhance biological life within irrigated cropland soils, to improve soil structure, soil-water holding capacity, natural fertility and carbon drawdown. And thereby, increase resilience to drought, counter erosion, and benefit the climate.
- This is a verification program with a rigorous set of soil and water infiltration testing, annual monitoring, and continuous trialing of what growing methods will achieve our goals.
- We’re relying on signed agreements with farms about implementation methods and practices and measuring changes in-field with science. The cotton grown in this project carries the Climate Beneficial trademark through Fibershed.
How We Came to Be
Our rangeland soils in California have lost half of their historic carbon stocks. In cropland systems that have been tilled it is estimated that these losses are higher.
Carbon is nature’s fuel source for all soil ecosystem processes. Without implementing practices to rebuild the carbon (and thus biology) of the soil, the push for chemistry and tillage in production agriculture will persist and agricultural yields will shrink as these systems fail.
Fibershed, White Buffalo Land Trust, Torus Circularity and Materevolve didn’t decide to start a coalition and enroll farmers and companies. We responded to an emerging need:
- Farms interested in on-farm scientific research to understand how to shift practices to prioritize soil carbon in cotton growing systems
- Companies interested in Climate Beneficial™ Cotton sourced in our “backyard” – California’s Central Valley.
We joined together and in the Fall of 2020, C4 was born. We’ve invited all stakeholders from seed to product to join us in this effort. And, although we still have a lot of work to do, we’re already planning our obsolescence. We believe that it’s imperative for farm-forward, climate beneficial sourcing to become the norm and for all partners working with us to build the expertise to design textiles in this way. Our team (Fibershed, White Buffalo Land Trust, Torus Circularity, and Materevolve) aims to step out of the management of this effort once the system is up and running.
Join Us
Companies participating in the coalition are paying a premium for cotton and a coalition fee for precompetitive textile development, storytelling, and educational services. A premium cotton price allows on-farm changes to be economically viable and provides an incentive for future acreage transition to these soil building, climate beneficial farming practices.
We still have cotton available for sale (2022 harvest) and are accepting orders for 2023 harvest year.
Benefits of joining C4
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Education - farm tours and webinars
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Collaborative Marketing + Storytelling Support
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Pre-competitive Textile Development
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Access to purchasing cotton from farm partners
Hear from Our Coalition
Let’s Talk
We’d love to hear from you!
