How Cotton Coin can revolutionize cotton industry?

Look at the label of your t-shirt.

It is probably made in 100% of cotton. The same as mine. And the same as almost every citizen's of civilized countries.

Have you ever wondered where this material comes from? And most importantly: who produced cotton for your t-shirt?

I will not quote a history of cotton industry here, because I think it is not necessary now. The most important thing for me is to make us aware about the scale of the cotton industry and the consequences that it brings. Maybe some numbers?

• About 75% of our clothing contains some cotton.
• 300 million farmers in 80 countries rely on cotton for their livelihoods.
• Cotton covers 2.5% of the world’s cultivated land.
• 29 milion tons of cotton are produced a year.

And the most terrifying number: since 1998 more than 300,000 cotton farmers have killed themselves. So the price on the tag is not the only one that we have to pay. The additional cost is human life. And many of us are not aware of that.

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We have to put the questions: why is this happening and how can we prevent it?

International Food Policy Research Institute found indebtedness and hopelessness as the main reasons. Farmers get their payments with delay, they work in very poor conditions and are affected by a lack of government support. Due to that, suicide is often the only solution for them. In my opinion it's a vicious circle, because if farmers are not satisfied with their work and live in constant stress, work efficiency is dramatically reduced and the cotton quality is poor. This has an impact on the profits of clothing companies, which pay less for cotton due to that. If cotton is cheaper, earnings of farmers are smaller and we are going back to the beginning. This system is so settled, that we need a real revolution. And here comes blockchain.

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Cotton Coin

The main goal of this project is "Saving Lives Through Technology". They want to reduce the number of suicides among farmers by integrating consumers, supply chain participants and authorities in one ecosystem, which will be based on decentralized payment network. This will provide instant, secure and easy payments for farmers, who won't have to worry about their finances thanks to it. Blockchain is international, so it will allow farmers to have transactions worldwide and monitor cotton prices. This project will also improve trust between consumers and retailers, because blockchain is fully transparent and there is no place for scam. This technology also eliminates banks or any central authority, which prevents from corruption and any form of control. Cotton Coin allows farmers to create nodes, which secure whole network, make transactions instantly and provide high profits for their holders. This can be a great form of investment for farmers, and will give them opportunity to improve their financial situation. I think Cotton Coin will break the vicious circle described in the previous paragraph and not only increase the standard of living of farmers but also the quality of cotton and thus the profits of companies. It will be positive for the whole system.

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Potential problem of Cotton Coin

Once I have tried to explain to my grandmother what blockchain is, how it works and how people can make money from it, and she said that is all a scam and she couldn't trust it. I am afraid that farmers from third world, who hasn't have much contact with technology, can also be skeptical. They may suspect that this is just another way to abuse them. I think it will be an extremely important challenge for Cotton Coin to build trust among farmers. Anyway, in my view, this project has a great qualification to do that.

Summary

Cotton Coin in my opinion is a very extraordinary project, which can be a beautiful example of blockchain technology used for a noble goal. I hope that this idea will succeed and cotton industry will be revolutionized. Still, we have to remember, that there are many industries that need reform, because people lose their lives in order to make big companies even richer. I hope that there will be people who will take matters into their own hands and will use blockchain technology to save human lives. Such as in case of cotton industry.

Here you can learn more about Cotton Coin