Cotton in particular is a bad crop choice because it uses a lot of water. Cotton cultivation is a contributing factor to the shrinking of the Aral Sea.
Don’t know what you mean by that but the Soviet having made worse does not mean other countries approach is water-friendly. See https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/files/6843583/water_footprint_of_c...
Not to mention that cotton is notorious for depleting soil nutrients, so it is often grown with very large amounts of fertilizer, which also polluted waterways and their outlets into the oceans.