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Plant Science Today (PST)

Review Articles

Vol. 13 No. sp1 (2026): Recent Advances in Agriculture

Tapestry of Crypto Cotton’s Odyssey in the global textile industry: Blockchain-enabled traceability across the cotton value chain

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14719/pst.12385
Submitted
22 October 2025
Published
05-03-2026

Abstract

Blockchain stands as one of the technological titans of our digital era, rapidly reshaping commerce and supply networks across the globe. Within this landscape, cotton cultivation and its vast textile ecosystem emerge as a critical frontier for innovation, where issues of authenticity, purity and ethical sourcing converge with the promise of decentralisation. This review offers a comprehensive global overview of cotton significance, contextualising its economic and cultural significance while mapping the sector’s vulnerabilities to opacity, counterfeiting and unsustainable practices. The central hypothesis of this review is that cotton’s global dominance in production and its pivotal role as the backbone of the textile industry make it imperative to integrate blockchain-enabled traceability from the agronomic phase of cultivation onward, thereby enhancing fibre quality, ensuring authenticity and fostering sustainable, trusted supply chains from farm to fashion. To evaluate this hypothesis, we conduct a structured review of peer-reviewed literature, patents and technical databases, triangulating insights from agronomy, supply chain management and financial technology. Whereas earlier reviews have focused narrowly on blockchain applications within the textile industry, this study uniquely integrates the agricultural foundation of cotton, highlighting the importance of on-farm traceability and agronomic data, before extending the analysis to ginning, spinning and global textile trade. Our findings demonstrate that decentralised ledgers are not only strengthening traceability and reducing informational asymmetries, but also enabling equitable participation of farmers, enforcing sustainability standards. By critically examining both academic research and emerging real-world deployments, this paper establishes a forward-looking framework for the digital transformation of cotton supply chains, underscoring blockchain’s potential to weave together ethical, transparent and sustainable textile futures.

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