The many problems caused by Uzbek cotton

The Guardian reported yesterday that a group of top British retail outlets are boycotting cotton products from the former Soviet state of Uzbekistan in Central Asia because of their child labor practices.

Every year Uzbek authorities yank hundreds of thousands of children out of school and force them to harvest cotton in brutal conditions. Uzbekistan is one of the world's largest cotton exporters and the 'white gold' is a key part of the Uzbek economy. But that wealth comes on the back of children forced into the labor-intensive cotton harvest.

Previously it was considered impossible to tell what cotton came from what country - large textile mills can use cotton from many sources. But according to the Guardian new technology enables manufacturers to easily trace where their cotton comes from, and now major retailers like Tesco and the Gap have decided not to buy theirs from Uzbekistan.

And child labor isn't the only negative about the Uzbek cotton industry; it is also largely responsible for one of the world's biggest ecological disasters - the disappearance of the Aral Sea.

The Aral Sea was once one of the world's largest inland seas, supporting a unique ecology and a thriving fishing industry. But a decision by the Soviet Union decades ago, to turn the arid plains of Central Asia into a center of cotton-based agriculture (a stupid decision since cotton is a crop that requires a lot of water to grow) prompted authorities to divert much of the flow of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, which once fed the Aral Sea. The result has been that the Aral has shrunk by as much as 90% in the past few decades, causing the fishing sector to collapse and spawning dust storms that are blamed for health problems in many (formerly) seaside communities.

Uzbek authorities know about the problem, yet refuse to give up the lucrative cotton trade. Perhaps the growing boycott over child labor might prompt the Uzbeks to rethink what they grow and how they grow it.