Citizens of Humanity is finally seeing the fruits of a multiyear labor to bring regeneratively grown cotton to store shelves.
The Los Angeles-based denim brand has been working with 11 farms across the U.S. in addition to three in Turkey to procure about 5 million pounds of fiber over the past two years, grown with a greater attention to soil health and biodiversity to promote the resilience of agricultural land. It released its debut collection of jeans and denim staples made with regenerative cotton this spring.
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The group spoke about its journey at an event at its Downtown, L.A. showroom last week, bringing together stakeholders from throughout the value chain. A panel included one of its farm partners who spoke to the cascading impacts regenerative agriculture, from macro effects like carbon capture to farmer benefits like better crop yields. In some cases, the shift to more sustainable methods of growing and harvesting has saved farming operations from going under entirely.
Citizens CEO Amy Williams told Rivet that the brand began probing the possibility of a transition to regenerative cotton in late 2021 on the advice of its Turkish denim mill, Orta, which is a strong proponent of moving away from conventional agricultural practices like monocropping, tilling, and the use of chemical inputs. A coalition began to form around researchers and agricultural experts, “and that’s when we started to put the initial group of farmers together,” she said.
Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA) became another partner in the effort. Though the group historically worked mostly with produce farmers, Williams said co-founder John Kempf helped the brand in its on-the-ground efforts to establish a network of American farmers dedicated to transitioning to regenerative practices and dedicating their livelihoods to the sale of regenerative cotton.
It was a tall order, Williams said. “There were some farmers who said, ‘We want to do this, but we can’t afford to take the risk if we don’t know that someone is going to buy it,’” she explained. With this feedback in mind, Citizens began mapping out its regenerative sourcing program with an eye toward long-term viability.
“That’s why we structured our program the way we did, where we said, ‘If you do this and you meet these criteria, we will be the guaranteed buyer at the end of it.’ That was the shift that allowed them to say, ‘We’ll do this,’” she explained.
But over the ensuing months and years, Citizens has taken a leadership role in bringing other fashion players into the fold. There’s strength in numbers, Williams believes, and economies of scale can only be built through a more unified vision for the future.
That future is well on its way, with lifestyle brands across the premium and contemporary space now bringing their first regenerative cotton collections to market. For those worried about the cost or effort of transitioning, she said there are considerations to take into account. “There are a lot of brands that have moved into organic cotton, or have looked into it for a percentage of their product. It’s more expensive than regenerative, and it’s not as impactful, so one could take monies that they were spending on organic accrediting to regenerative,” she said.
“As the years progress, the premium could lessen, because as the soil becomes healthier, [farmers’] yields are more productive,” she said.
Farmer James Johnson of Carzalia Valley Produce, a New Mexico-based farm and Citizens supplier that is part of the AEA network, said the transition to regenerative farming techniques reinvigorated a decades-old business on the brink of collapse.
“Cotton has been in my blood since well before I was born,” he said. A fourth-generation cotton farmer, Johnson said the cotton market took a downturn in 1991 that prompted Carzalia to focus more heavily on vegetable production. The farm phased out cotton for a time before returning to the business nearly a decade later to offset losses in fertility in other areas.
“A lot of what we were doing wrong in agriculture was self-inflicted, and so a lot of the problems that we had seen was declining production and declining quality all went back to our soil health, and how we were treating our soil,” Johnson said. After engaging with AEA, he learned that even adopting more sustainable practices like composting and using cover crops could be rendered ineffective without the right strategy.
“That started a philosophy change,” he said. On the way home from an AEA meeting, where he had pledged to convert 175 acres to advancing eco-agriculture, Johnson changed his mind. “On the drive home, I told my son, if there’s a way that we’re going to save the family farm, we’re going to do 100 percent converted.”
Today, the reduction in the use of fertilizers and pesticides has cut the farm’s costs and brought wildlife back to the property not seen in some time. “But one of the best things that we’ve seen is an improvement in production and improvement in quality,” he said. “Last year our cotton was so uniform and just such an impeccable standard.”
For brands as well as farmers, the opportunities will only continue to grow, Williams believes. So too will the pressures pushing brands toward regenerative farming.
“There’s a desire from people who work at companies to feel like they’re making thoughtful, responsible choices. There’s legislative pressures, there’s sustainability groups who have been working in earnest for a couple years—and then at times, you find out that something you thought was a better alternative may not be right,” she said.
With the industry learning more about its impact and its options every day, she’s seeing more pre-competitive collaboration surrounding things like sustainable sourcing than at any time in her multi-decade fashion career.
“Everyone’s just trying to figure it out. And like, the more we can align on certain things that matter, it really is that much easier for the mills, the manufacturers, to come on board,” Williams added. “What I see is people talking to each other, talking to other brands, and getting the benefit of that cross pollination and sharing.”
