Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) has published its first impact report in five years, covering nine years of field-level data from 1.4 million farmers producing 6.1 million tonnes of licensed cotton in 2024-25, or nearly a quarter of global supply.

Released on World Cotton Day, the assessment quantifies agrochemical and resource intensity changes across BCI's grower base:

• 69% of participating farmers cut synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use per kilogram of cotton
• 65% lowered synthetic pesticide application rates
• 54% achieved measurable drops in carbon emissions per kilogram
• 59% of smallholder BCI farmers reported improved net incomes over the period
• 52% of fully irrigated farms reduced water use per kilogram of cotton produced

The dataset covers the chemical-input, income, and water-use outcomes sourcing teams typically request when substantiating cotton sustainability claims at fibre-tier level.

What do the 2024-25 figures show year-on-year?

The annual report published alongside the impact assessment sharpens the picture for the most recent season, breaking the same indicators down against the prior year:

• Synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use fell on 61% of BCI farms compared with the previous season
• Pesticide application dropped 40%
• Irrigation water use fell 43%
• Overall carbon footprints on participating farms declined by nearly half

These year-on-year shifts move at a faster pace than the nine-year averages, indicating that the most recent cohort of growers is pulling the programme's resource-intensity profile down more sharply than earlier participants.

Where does progress remain uneven?

The report flags that sustainable crop protection gains in smallholder settings have not consistently translated to larger-scale farming operations. The complexity of driving field-level change across disparate farming models continues to present challenges, the document notes, and the same caveat applies to broader roll-out of the system.

How is the programme funded?

BCI's Growth and Innovation Fund disbursed €18.5m to cotton farmers in 2024-25, with €17.8m directed to smallholders and reaching 1.5 million field workers. The fund's smallholder allocation accounts for the bulk of programme spend, tying commercial fibre-tier outcomes directly to field-level compliance metrics that brands increasingly demand from mill and farm suppliers.

What is changing in farm-level gender representation?

Women now account for 17% of BCI field facilitation and producer unit positions worldwide, up from 9% five years ago. The near-doubling registers progress on a social compliance metric that multiple sourcing codes now track at tier-2 supplier level.

What sourcing decision does this force?

For buyers tracing licensed cotton back to farm-level outcomes, BCI's nine-year dataset supplies the quantitative basis needed to substantiate sustainability claims tied to specific agrochemical and water-use metrics. Brands relying on mass-balance chain-of-custody models will need to decide whether their tier-1 mill and tier-2 farm claims now require field-level documentation rather than aggregated programme participation alone.

BCI chief executive Nick Weatherill said: "Data and evidence represent the most important currency with which we operate and form the foundation for all aspects of our work – enabling us to strengthen our impact at field level and building the trust and confidence of the market and stakeholders in BCI cotton. It is also essential for us to deliver on our core mission and drive advancement of the cotton sector towards a more sustainable future."

Impact and development senior director Iain Gardiner called the report "an unprecedented and transformative exercise", providing not just outcomes but also guidance for scalable action and data-driven improvement across the cotton sector.