Honey bees produce honey and earthworms break down our compost – this is knowledge many of us know. But did you know that a ladybug can eat up to 2500 aphids during its lifetime? Or that flower flies are important pollinators? Without all small animals, life remains on earth, at least in the way we know it. It is all our small animals that make us have apples on the trees and that the leaves and your leftovers rot to the ground.
Researchers have reported that the number of insects worldwide is declining alarmingly in recent years. They warn that insect death can have significant consequences, not least for the future food supply. Insects pollinate one-third of all the food we eat [1]. These little insects also lend a hand with many other helpful tasks, known as eco-services!
SO WHAT DOES THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY HAVE TO DO WITH THIS?
One of the causes of the ongoing insect death is believed to be the increased use of chemicals in agriculture [2]. This issue is particularly notable in cotton farming, one of the most heavily sprayed crops globally. Remarkably, we utilize 25% of the world’s insecticides on cotton plantations [3].
Insecticides kill not only pests but also the insects that would naturally eat the pests. Pest insects eventually resist insecticides, meaning that growers must add more potent pesticides to get the same effect. Unfortunately, the chemicals do not stay on the crops but spread via water and air to adjacent fields, meadows, forests, and streams where many insects and other animals live [3].
One type of insecticide that researchers mainly link to the sharp decline in pollinating insects is neonicotinoids [2]. The substance group, now one of the most widely used insecticides globally, is 7000 times more toxic than DDT [4]. In the United States, one of the world’s largest cotton exporters, until recently, almost all cotton was sprayed with neonicotinoids [5]. Today’s agricultural landscape is nearly 50 times more toxic than 25 years ago, with sharp reductions in bees, butterflies, and other pollinators [6]. As a result, we have banned most neonicotinoids in the EU and the United States. However, the ban only affects a fraction of the cotton industry, as cotton is mainly grown in countries with no legislation against insecticides.
COTTON WITHOUT TOXINS IS POSSIBLE – TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE INSECTS!
Worldwide organic cotton plantations show that it is possible to grow cotton without insecticides. Organic farming also has greater opportunities to take advantage of insects in agriculture, both as pest control and as pollinators.
Another question is whether we need to grow as much cotton as we do today. The average person buys 60 per cent more garments and keeps them half as long as they did 15 years ago [7]. Humans depend entirely on insects for survival, which might make us question how much we need that new sweater.
WELCOME TO OUR GUIDE ABOUT SMALL ANIMALS OR SMALL INSECTS AS THEY ARE ALSO CALLED!
In the coming weeks, we will tell as much as we can about different types of small insects, everything from bees and bumblebees to double-tailed deer and mosquitoes. Follow us here on the blog and social media!
Sources
- Riksdagen. se – Bees and pollination – its importance to food production
- Science Direct – Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers
- WWF – Cleaner, Greener Cotton: Impacts and Better Management Practices
- Sverigesradio.se – When the insects are silent
- Journals.plos.org – An assessment of acute insecticide toxicity loading (AITL) of chemical pesticides used on agricultural land
- National Geographic – Insect ‘apocalypse’ in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides
- United Nation news – UN launches drive to highlight environmental cost of staying fashionable
