Using words.
An environmental and agricultural communications professional, Bec Sloane is committed to identifying potentially overlooked opportunities and underreported subject matter and building upon their visibility and resonance across a diverse range of audiences.
Below are a sample of features produced and/or edited by Sloane in collaboration with the organizations and initiatives she has worked with. Always looking to listen, learn and help spread the word, her door remains open to new opportunities at: 0.becsloane@gmail.com .
This first series of articles were produced while leading U.S. Communications for the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), the world’s largest cotton sustainability organization. With a focus on field-level stakeholders – from farmers to entomologists – the aim of these stories was to shed light on the regenerative efforts at play among those involved in large-scale cotton production.
Lacy & her girls: A legacy of conservation, partnership and having a seat at the table (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2026)
Lacy is a Texas-based cotton farmer, rancher and conservationist, recognized as a leading figure in the 2026 International Year of the Woman Farmer – the same year in which her two daughters joined as owners of the family operation. Read on.
Insights gleaned from field sampling: a story told through living roots (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2026)
5th-gen producer Zeb Winslow keeps one eye on what is happening above ground, the other on what’s happening below. Collaborating with agronomic consultants and cutting-edge labs, Zeb aims to better understand soil ecosystems and provide a roadmap for fellow producers. Read on.
U.S. Cotton Connections 2025: “We’re not here to paint a picture for you that has no depth to it.” (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2025)
It never fails: something transformative occurs when folks gather in a field and listen to a farmer speak. Read on.
“We are here today because of the cotton”: Representatives from BCI’s Large Farm countries gather in Brazil’s vast cotton fields (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2025)
After BCI launched its inaugural Large Farm Week 2024 in Türkiye, it became clear there was an appetite for connecting in the field to exchange knowledge and experiences surrounding large-scale cotton farming. Read on.
Tackling pest pressure in U.S. cotton: Magnifying a culture of collaboration with Dr. Dominic Reisig (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2025)
Entomologist and Extension Specialist, Dominic Reisig, has been working with cotton and its unwelcome tenants for over a decade. Despite its challenges, he notes cotton’s entomological history in the U.S. is a legacy worthy of upholding. Read on.
Dimensions of cotton farming in the U.S.: Sustaining the farm through soil sampling and relationship building (Jacob Cagle, Bec Sloane (Editor) | BCI, 2025)
When Jacob visited cotton farmer Terry Fuller in Missouri this past fall alongside U.S. Impact Manager Karen Wynne, they gathered more than soil samples as they walked the land that he farms. Read on.
In Search of the Rosetta Stone of Soil Health (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2024)
Late into a long and dry summer, I waded through soy and corn in search of Zeb Winslow’s elusive 25 acres of cotton to see whether they stood the test of a rough season. The blooms were a sight, but it was Zeb’s ongoing soil work that brought us out to Scotland Neck, NC. Read on.
Navigating Regenerative Farming in California’s Central Valley (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2024)
“You have to learn to manage the cons, and take advantage of the pros.” Fourth generation farmer Gino Pedretti has been involved in a number of sustainability initiatives over the years and is participating in a multi-year trial growing regenerative cotton. Read on.
US Cotton Connections 2024: Embracing localized approaches to sustaining cotton farming in the country’s largest producing state (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2024)
“We only know the realities we’re exposed to.” BCI’s U.S. team was joined by farmers, researchers, merchants, brand reps and fellow initiatives exploring cotton farming in semi-arid West Texas to better comprehend realities faced by fiber producers in localized contexts. Read on.
Large Farm Symposium 2024: Shared learnings and continued collaboration (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2024)
Following BCI’s momentous Large Farm Week in Türkiye and subsequent Large Farm Dialogue, the organization gathered members of its large-scale farming community virtually, along with guest speakers, to explore major challenges and developments surrounding cotton. Read on.
Large Farm Week 2024: BCI initiates first in-person convening around large-scale production of cotton (Bec Sloane | BCI, 2024)
“Witnessing colleagues and partners interacting, learning, showing their interest and passion – and seeing how engaged they have been throughout the week – are all testaments to the singular opportunity Large Farm Week presented to us.” Alvaro Moreira, Sr. Manager, Large Farm Programmes & Partnerships, BCI. Read on.
The following are a selection of editorials and reviews Sloane contributed on various topics for The Natural Farmer, a quarterly printed newspaper produced by the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA), and for Farm Sahel, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the vision of prosperous women farmers building a greener, food-secure Africa.
Book Review: Ilse Köhler-Rollefson’s “Hoofprints on the Land” (Bec Sloane | 2023)
“Documenting traditional knowledge does not really preserve it — it needs to be lived, applied, revised, adapted.” – I.K.R. What Ilse Köhler-Rollefson delivers in Hoofprints on the Land is a smartly bundled parcel from which to sample polycultural (and polyspecies) wisdom, decolonized science and actionable solutions. Read on.
A stroll through solutions found among the trees. (Bec Sloane | 2022)
What once seemed a tall-tale postcard is revealing itself to be a very real and attainable landscape: Agroforestry, with its adjunct systems of silvopasture, riparian forest buffers and the like, dates back millennia. Now, the practice of integrating trees into agriculture and vice verse is reemerging on the radars of farmers, ecologists, activists and investors. Read on.
Stormy weather at COP26 amid a “Colonization of the Sky” (Bec Sloane | 2021)
“For the cost of flying to Glasgow, we could build a borehole in Togo and give clean water access to people.” — Kaossara Sani, co-founder, Act on Sahel. As we eke out news trickling in from COP26 — some hopeful, some doubtful — the world is becoming wise to the fact that we’re hearing a lot of talk from a small few, that there are voices missing. Read on.
Equipped: Fighting stigma and standing tall in the Sahel (Bec Sloane | 2021)
The research, design, and development of farm technology has historically been reflective of the needs and preferences of men. Yet in Burkina Faso, where agricultural work is overwhelmingly carried out by women, ill-suited tools are both physically and economically burdensome, and their redesign ought to be informed by input from those meant to wield them. Stunting this evolution, however, are the myriad sociocultural and gender norms at play. Read on.
The following is a series of articles Sloane produced in collaboration with IMM-Print (Freedom for Immigrants), shedding light on the experiences of U.S. migrant farmworkers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Homing in on the Harvest: Punjabi Farmers in the Orchard, at the Border, in the Streets (Bec Sloane | 2021)
“Injustice was the way of the world; what mattered was what one could accomplish between its cracks and fissures.” — Rishi Reddi, Passage West. Among the undercurrents of immigrant livelihood only partially realized by most, are the journeys of Punjabi farmers, truckers and detainees throughout the U.S. and approaching its borders. Read on.
Homing in on the Harvest: Tracking the ruinous tale of a viral, pandemic myth. (Bec Sloane | 2021)
Mockery, blame and prejudice have loomed over Asian Americans throughout this pandemic, and plagued our country long before COVID-19 ever arrived. Like the virus, they spread rapidly through air, and reveal themselves by dint of myriad repercussions. Read on.
Homing in on the Harvest: Casting about for Priority (Bec Sloane | 2021)
“Social justice and attending to the planet proceed in parallel; the abuse of one entails the exploitation of the other.” – Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest. In a new year, our world, stunned by crises, remains shaken. Its systems undone and notes scattered, this is a time ripe for the reorganization of rooms and a rewriting of narratives. Read on.
Homing in on the Harvest: “The fruit will not wait for this to pass.” (Bec Sloane | 2021)
As the medical community scrambles to tame this pandemic, a swath of essential workers remains missing from our conversations. Migrant farmworkers, already distanced from the general public amid fears of deportation, live in deeper isolation than the quarantined recipients of the fruit of their labor. Read on.
Homing in on the Harvest: A balancing act like no other. (Bec Sloane | 2021)
Most of us, despite respective COVID-19 hurdles, can at least get through our day without wondering whether our 9-year old has remembered to feed their newborn sibling, or how our oldest daughter will fare stepping out of high school and into the fields. Read on.
Homing in on the Harvest: COVID-19 & the Wary Wisdom of Migrant Children (Bec Sloane | 2021)
Educators and students across the country are facing challenges they never saw coming. While a few discover they are suited for remote learning, most have had their worlds flipped over and pockets shaken out. But for the hundreds of thousands of migrant farmworkers’ children in the U.S. whose daily norms were already worlds apart from their peers pre-pandemic, that shakeup has upended life in ways that could drastically shape their futures. Read on.
