Armani Agroforestry Project: the world’s first cotton grown with regenerative farming

A globally relevant case study: thanks to the support of the Armani Group, a pioneering protocol for cotton grown in forest-based agriculture is moving forward in southern Italy – while the first 1,000 T-shirts reach store shelves

Armani’s Cotton T-Shirt: Made and Sourced in Italy

A cotton T-shirt from an agroforestry supply chain, with full Italian traceability: “Made and Sourced in Italy” — an additional designation, similar to wine classifications where DOCG goes beyond DOC. This is no small feat in a country where “Made in Italy” is a source of pride and a major economic engine. Today, the label “Made in Italy” in textiles does not include yarns actually produced in Italy; “sourced in Italy” simply doesn’t exist. Fabrics are woven in Italy, the looms are Italian — but the yarns are imported. There are very few exceptions: some coarse, low-grade wools that rarely reach industrial scale production — and now, the cotton cultivated for Armani in Puglia.

From the 2023 harvest, on July 17, 2025, Giorgio Armani introduced the first thousand T-shirts made from Italian regenerative cotton. Available in a handful of stores across Europe, the T-shirts enter the main line collection — a tribute to Mr. Armani, who wore a cotton T-shirt every day. Cotton is now the most widely used natural fiber in the world, second only to synthetics. But cotton cannot be grown just anywhere; soil and climate must be right. Puglia is an ideal region for cotton, where the plant thrives in heat reaching 43–45°C (109–113°F).

CREA Bari and Giorgio Armani: the test fields in Rutigliano, and Professor Scarascia of the European Forest Institute (EFI)

The Council for Agricultural Research (CREA) in Bari oversees seven experimental farms across Puglia. One of them — the historic Venezian-Scarascia farm, formerly part of the Agronomic Laboratory of Bari — spans about 20 hectares. Thanks to funding from the Armani Group, the first cotton seeds were planted here in the spring of 2023, covering 5 of the 20 hectares. Ginning took place in Sicily; spinning was carried out by Filbest in the province of Florence.

Rutigliano, a town in Puglia, is known for table grapes and for its traditional ceramic whistles beloved by the local mayor. The town participates in the “Bio Cities” project driven by the European Forest Institute, which supports social and agricultural innovation through EU-funded programs — for example, prototypes that stabilize wastewater to make it usable for irrigation.

Cotton grown in agroforestry is part of this protocol. Professor Giuseppe Scarascia recounts a recent visit to Uzbekistan, which hosts one of the world’s largest conferences on cotton cultivation. Among all the international examples presented, the only agroforestry cotton project highlighted was the one underway in Puglia — the very project described here.

Food demand, available land, and soil degradation

A few numbers: the world population today is 8.2 billion, all of whom aspire — or have the right — to eat three meals a day. In 1960, the amount of arable land available would have given each person roughly 500 hectares to support their annual food needs. Today, we have just 2 hectares per person — unevenly distributed. In Italy, 300,000 hectares remain available for a population of 60 million, meaning only 0.05 hectares per person. Italy imports milk, fish, and potatoes, and exports rice. Globally, about 30% of soils are degraded. In Italy, the figure is 75%.

Farming techniques: conventional and organic

The old saying “send the kids to the fields” is less true than ever. Modern farming requires technical expertise and sophisticated tools that not everyone has access to. Irrigation systems, for example, rely on complex mathematical formulas tested repeatedly in laboratories.

Professor Giuseppe Corti of CREA identifies four forms of agriculture today. Conventional agriculture is often painted as a problem — a backward system blamed for environmental damage. Yet Corti notes that in Italy, conventional agriculture sustains a globally admired food supply chain and supports agricultural industries nationwide. The issue is never the individual farmer, he adds, but rather the entrenched traditions of a territory, which can sometimes act more as obstacles than strengths.

Organic agriculture, Corti says, “is more an ideology than a system. Yields decrease. Synthetic inputs like fertilizers and pesticides decrease — but there is no scientific evidence that organic farming results in a lower environmental impact.”

Regenerative agriculture and agroforestry

Regenerative agriculture focuses on restoring soil biodiversity. Agroforestry — growing crops among trees — is both a step forward and a return to history, when farming beneath tree cover was the norm. Tree roots enrich and structure the soil, creating both a stabilizing framework that reduces erosion and a hydraulic network that transports nutrients deeper into the ground, fostering habitats for microorganisms.

Agroforestry demands even more advanced technical skills. Current agricultural machinery is not designed for it: tractors are too large to maneuver between shrubs and young trees, requiring new adaptations.

In agroforestry and regenerative systems, soil must remain covered year-round. In Rutigliano, cotton covers the soil in summer; winter brings cover crops such as legumes, which fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. Plant diversity increases within each hectare — always with economic value in mind: figs for food, carob for animal feed, mulberry trees for a potential revival of Italy’s silk supply chain.

Agroforestry: experimentation and irrigation procedures

Cotton’s main challenge is water demand. While food crops like tomatoes require more than twice as much water as cotton, the efficiency of agroforestry is striking: one cubic meter of water can produce 0.7 kilograms of cotton fiber and seed — compared to 0.4 kilograms reported in conventional agriculture.

CREA’s research focuses on optimizing irrigation. Soil sensors measure moisture; suspended micro-weather stations track evapotranspiration — the combined effect of soil evaporation and plant transpiration. Subtracting these values reveals the plants’ actual water consumption. The 5-hectare test field is divided into individual plots, each exposed to different variables.

Tree shade can reduce cotton plant height — a possible drawback — but the benefits outweigh the disadvantages: improved soil fertility, lower water use (tree-interspersed fields remain more humid), and overall efficiency gains of around 30%. Cotton blooms later in the season and produces more and larger bolls.

In December, after harvesting the fiber, cotton plants are mechanically shredded. The organic fragments remain on the ground for a few weeks, then a shallow tilling — no deeper than 10 cm — incorporates them into the soil. Deep plowing is never used: the soil should not be exposed to air. It must remain covered with vegetation year-round, allowing photosynthesis to continue and preventing stored carbon from oxidizing.

Certifications and Digital Passport: Regenagri audits

The Digital Passport: scanning a QR code on the garment label opens a page showing the full journey of the T-shirt — from raw material to the packaging delivered at checkout. The Digital Passport displays certifications and all the evidence supporting the product’s traceability and integrity.

The value of such certifications depends entirely on the credibility of the certifying body. Armani’s Regenerative Cotton Project in Puglia, especially the agricultural phase in Rutigliano, is audited by Regenagri — a UK-registered Community Interest Company (CiC). Certified inspectors conduct annual on-site audits, assessing parameters such as water use, energy use, natural-only fertilizers, reduced tillage, machinery maintenance, presence of windbreak hedges, and absence of plastic in operations.

The most recent audit in Rutigliano produced a score of 79 out of 100 — with Regenagri requiring an additional 4 percentage points of improvement in the next audit. These assessments represent a financial investment: both in preparing the farm for certification and in compensating the certifying body and its technicians. Today, Regenagri oversees around 2 million hectares worldwide, involving approximately 330,000 farms.

Carlo Mazzoni

Information Note

The Regenerative Cotton Project in Puglia is made possible through an initiative by the Armani Group, promoted by the SMI (Sustainable Markets Initiative Fashion Task Force), in collaboration with the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance, and coordinated by the European Forest Institute (EFI), the Italian Council for Agricultural Research (CREA), and Pretaterra.