Some retailers have begun including concepts like "sustainable" and "environmentally friendly" in their marketing campaigns. Thanks to advances made in recent years, U.S. agricultural industry groups, like Cotton Incorporated, the National Cotton Council and the Cotton Board, are eager to deliver good news about conventionally grown cotton.

Berrye Worsham, president and CEO of Cotton Incorporated, thinks it is increasingly important to get accurate information to retailers and customers. For example, he notes a recent internal Wal-Mart publication stating that organically-grown cotton saves nearly 1 ton of pesticides from being applied per acre. "I don't think they deliberately distorted the figures but those are the kinds of statements that have become accepted 'facts,'" he said.

William Crawford, president and CEO of the Cotton Board, says, "We're just trying to establish the facts between organic versus conventional production. [for cotton]" The industry wants to help promote an understanding of sustainability, which it sees as maintaining the environmental quality and natural resources needed to supply tomorrow's demand while retaining economic viability.

The story the industry is sharing with retailers includes the reduction of the environmental footprint, using less land to produce more cotton, improvements in water use efficiency, reductions in fuel use and soil loss due to conservation tillage, and a reduction in the average number of insecticides applied to the crop - all the result of improved farm practices, like conservation tillage, and advances, including genetically modified cotton seeds. "Sustainability is a way to look to the future, to be proactive," Cantrell said. "It's not being negative or defensive. It's something we're already doing, but sometimes we're not getting credit for it."