Soon, a satellite in space could be involved in determining whether your favourite cotton dress is organic.
A new initiative by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) plans to combine data from satellite images and artificial intelligence (AI) to keep track of cotton certification in India.
The project is a collaboration between ESA, GOTS and AI company Marple that will automatically classify cotton fields in India in line with cultivation standards.
Under ESA’s Business Applications and Space Solutions programme, the initiative will train AI models to ‘read’ ESA satellite data to identify and classify cotton fields in India.
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“This project highlights how space solutions can have a positive impact on the world and is the kind of innovation that ESA supports through its Business Applications and Space Solutions programme,” Guillaume Prigent, Business Development and Partnerships Officer at ESA, said in an email to The Hindu.
The project will help GOTS to generate accurate estimates of organic cotton yields in specific regions by incorporating standardised yield metrics.
GOTS is an alliance of four organisations -- Organic Trade Association (US), the Internationaler Verband der Naturtextilwirtschaft (Germany), The Soil Association (U.K.) and the Japan Organic Cotton Association (Japan) -- that brings together the textile and organic industries to promote organic textiles.
The initiative will identify cotton fields that meet predetermined standards as well as support those that demonstrate potential for a seamless transition to organic cultivation through the use of traditional and ecologically friendly farming practices.
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The primary objective of the collaboration is to bolster the integrity of organic cotton by developing advanced risk assessment techniques and to prevent fraud throughout the supply chain.
The approach is expected to bring a greater number of small-scale farmers into the certified organic sector and supply chains, creating new economic opportunities for them and their communities.
It could also help address the escalating consumer demand for organic cotton within the textile industry.
The programme has already had a successful pilot run in Uzbekistan, one of the world’s top cotton producers, in 2021. The data from the pilot project showed a 98% accuracy in differentiating between organic cotton fields and conventional ones.
The project will be implemented across various cotton-growing regions in India where organic cotton production plays a significant role. The first results are expected to be available in late 2023.
