The Global Context for Cotton in Mexico

Written by Guest Contributor Margaret Mac Sems

Margaret Mac Sems, originally from the West Coast of the United States, has found her niche at the intersection of small-scale farming and hand-crafted textiles. After doing field work in Oaxaca for her master’s degree in International Agricultural Development during 2006, she moved back in 2008 to work on milpa soil conservation with indigenous farmers on the coast of Oaxaca. In 2011 the work grew to include the production of native, colored cottons and co-founding Katyi Ya’a, an indigenous textile collective in San Juan Colorado, which spins and weaves this cotton.

From 2017-2024 she was instrumental in the development of the Khadi Oaxaca textile collective in the Sierra Sur de Miahuatlan. She is also co-founder of the native cotton collective Ñu’u Ndito and is currently guiding the development of their producer’s cooperative, co-managing their GMO-free native cotton project and advising on the program for the advancement of regenerative agriculture in the region.

Margaret lives and gardens in San Sebastian Rio Hondo, Sierra Sur, Oaxaca.

The origin of the genus Gossypium (cotton) dates to around 5–10 million years ago on four continents. Domestication of wild cotton dates back roughly 4,000 to 7,000 years, depending on which species and on which continent.  

There are about 50 Gossypium species in the world, but only four are cultivated commercially: G. Arboreum, G. Barbadense, G. Herbaceum, and G Hirsutum. About 95% of the world’s cotton production is G. Hirsutum. G. Barbadense accounts for about 4-5% and G. Arboreum and G. Herbaceumtogether make up less than 1%.

The sites of origin for these four varieties are India/Pakistan (G. Arboreum), Peru/Ecuador (G. Barbadense), sub-Saharan Africa and Arabia (G. Herbaceum), and Mexico is the place of origin of G. Hirsutum. The oldest cotton fiber recorded so far in Central America was found in the Tehuacan site near Oaxaca in Mexico and was produced sometime around 2,300 B.C.  Three of the four major species of native cotton offer varieties of multiple colors. The principal colors are white, green and a range of browns. Beyond that there are rare and varied colors ranging through pink, yellow, blue, lavender and deep browns. The greatest number of colors are present in G. Barbadense with perhaps as many as 70 colors. G. Hirsutum may have as many as 48 colors. Only the basic color range is represented in G. Herbaceum, and as far as I know, G. Arboreum is limited to white.

The greatest diversity of wild cotton species in the world is found in Mexico, however the species is considered vulnerable since these meta populations are in constant decline. In Mexico there are eight areas of wild sub-populations, which are all coastal sites below 1,200 meters ranging from the Pacific to the Caribbean.
1) Baja California Sur Metapopulation (southern Baja California Sur); 
2) North Pacific Metapopulation (central and southern Sinaloa and northern Nayarit); 
3) Golfo Norte Metapopulation (northern Veracruz, eastern San Luis Potosí and southern Tamaulipas); 
4)  Bahía de Banderas Metapopulation (southwestern Nayarit and northwestern Jalisco); 
5) Southern Gulf Metapopulation (central and southeastern Veracruz);
6) South Pacific Metapopulation (southeastern Guerrero, Oaxaca coastline, central‒western, central and southern Chiapas); 
7) Centre Pacific Metapopulation  (coastline of central and southern Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, northwestern and central Guerrero); and
8)  Peninsula of Yucatán Metapopulation (Quintana Roo, Yucatan, Campeche, northeastern and eastern Tabasco).

Native cotton is currently grown by small farmers in Oaxaca and five other states: Michoacán, Veracruz, Guerrero, Chiapas and Yucatan. These areas of Mexico were major producers of cotton during the 1800’s up until the 1980s (on the coast of Oaxaca). The end of conventional, commercial cotton production in the country came about due to a confluence of factors. The primary reason was that the cost to produce the fiber continued to escalate along with the pest pressure and the amount of insecticide required to “control” them. A few people I have talked with on the Oaxaca coast picked cotton in the 70’s and early 80’s and remember the massive spraying of insecticides done with airplanes. The complementary factor was a major increase in the production of cotton in India and its relatively low price. Thus, importation increased, domestic production decreased and soon thereafter, the shut-down of Mexico’s conventional cotton industry.

In 1996 Mexico started anew, but this time in the northern states of Baja California Norte, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Sonora and Tamaulipas. Why, you might ask, did the cotton industry decide to move from the natural sites of origin of cotton to these dry, desert states in the north? Because they had the opportunity to take advantage of the US-based, USDA boll weevil eradication program. The program involved many US states, a few Mexican states and lots of insecticides as well as several decades to complete. The result was a large swath of land on either side of the US-Mexico border free of the devastating effects of the boll weevil, which provided huge efficiency and economic advantage.

Not only did the entire industry move north, but it also converted to a primarily genetically modified (GMO) seed-based production. By the mid 2,000s 93% of Mexico’s commercial cotton producers were using genetically modified seeds in conjunction with the technological package that goes along with them; the principal advantage to using GMO cotton is its resistance to herbicides and some pests, but not the boll weevil.

For the past few years there has been a moratorium on allowing new GMO cotton traits to enter into use in Mexico. In 2024, Mexican cotton farmers had already been using seeds with up to 70 different inserted transgenes and many environmentally minded people were calling for the government to halt any and all new generations of GMO cotton in an effort to protect native and wild cotton as well as a healthy environment for insects. However, the industry farmers were desperate to receive the new products as the old one’s effects were no longer viable and they would soon become obsolete as producers. Unfortunately, for non-GMO cotton growers and wild populations of cotton, the government sided with industry and new transgenic events will soon begin arriving in Mexico, thus making it even more difficult and expensive to detect all the possible GMOs contaminating native and wild cotton.

As it stands, native cotton production in Mexico (and the world) is extremely limited and if you find it, it may or may not be organically produced. You also may or may not find colored, native cotton. One important distinction between native (white and colored) cotton and commercial cotton is the fiber length, the native varieties being shorter than the hybrid varieties. This is the principal reason that native cotton has remained on the fringes of the textile world. From ginning to spinning, cotton processing machinery is designed to handle a fiber longer than any of that which the native cottons provide. On the other hand, artisans all over the world have no problem hand ginning and spinning wild and native cotton of any color; more on that to come.