Aral Sea, Cotton, Environmental Disaster, Lethal Pesticides

Other videos about disastrous cotton industry http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=979E3A7411F692DC

Uzbekistan is the second largest exporter of cotton in the world, selling over 800,000 tonnes of cotton every year. Europe is its major buyer.

But while the former Soviet Republic is at the forefront of global cotton production, its human rights and environmental record lags far behind the rest of the world. Forced child labour, human rights violations, excessive pesticide use, the draining of an ocean and severe poverty are all rife in cotton production in Uzbekistan.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Cotton
• Field
• Toil
• Consumer
• Brand
• Exploitation
• Samarkand
• Khiva
• Hiva
• Tashkent
• Bukhara
• Buhara
• Uzbekistan
• Child
• Labour
• Labor
• Dictatorship
• Abuse
• Human
• Rights
• School
• Environment
• Disaster
• Pollution
• Aral
• Sea
• Kazakstan

[guodade]

It is hard to believe cotton is the thirstiest crop in the world. Some of the world’s wettest countries, such as Japan and Indonesia, cannot grow cotton because the climate is too wet.

According to statistics I read today, cotton actually uses a tenth as much water globally as rice, and tobacco requires considerably more rainfall than cotton.

[haimasoph]

@guodade Cotton needs dry weather and a lot of sun radiation during harvest period. Only under this conditions cotton bolls ripen and split open. Climate of Central Asia is ideal for this. Cotton is thirstiest crop because of it volumes. There are millions of hectares of cottons. People don't grow that much rice, not saying tobacco in such arid climate. Cotton is not watered by rainfalls but from irrigation canals. Water is taken from rivers and artisan wells. No water reaches Aral sea.

[HolliValsMusic]

Legalizing hemp would be a good place to start. It can produce so many different types of things in various areas of consumption. So what if people smoke weed, they do it already, what I'm talking about is industrial hemp.

[haimasoph]

@HolliValsMusic Good point. Cotton interests lobbiying the opposite i guess. Besides industrial hemp is not really smokable, and it can be grown almost anywhere without much water.