Shining the light on cotton

Last week 10 of our Young Farming Champions went to Cotton HQ at Mascot where they got the inside story on the Australian Cotton Industry and what an exciting story it is.

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Young Farming Champions visit Cotton Australia

Cotton is grown on the east coast of Australia from Emerald to Hay. Just love the denim map 

Major Cotton Growing Centres

Cotton is seen as an opportunity crop by Australian farmers in the regions where it is grown. It is only grown when water is plentiful and when it provides the best return on investment at that point in time

Now 20 years ago the cotton industry was shall we say not feeling the love from the community and getting a bit of a bad rap about its environmental footprint. Well kudos to them wow have they got their act together to address this by using Cotton BMP to guide their farmers to grow cotton in harmony with our natural environment. Cotton BMP is your guarantee of Australian cotton farmers environmental and ethical stewardship with audited processes and traceable supply chains – from the farm to you

Cotton BMP

BMP Cotton is in high demand in Japan

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Our Young Farming Champions soak up all the knowledge they heard in the CA boardroom from Communications Manager Chris Larsen

Australian cotton farmers have indeed made some big environmental stewardship gains. Check out these very impressive statistics

Australian Cotton Improvements in Pesticide use 

Australian Cotton Native Vegetation 

Australian Cotton Water Use Efficiency

But they are not stopping there and the cotton industry is building on their success story with genetic modification to amplify pest-management benefits to target even more ambitious gains. Having seen biotechnology reduce pesticide use in cotton crops by almost 90 per cent, Cotton Australia is applying a similar strategy to slash the amount of water needed to grow cotton.

Water Use efficiency Genes

This bold target is, again, relying on CSIRO expertise across a range of agricultural technologies and Cotton Australia has set an aspirational target of doubling the water-use efficiency of cotton crops in just 10 years. See footnote

Cotton Australia’s CEO Adam Kay told the Young Farming Champions

“We already have the most efficient water-use growers in the world, but we are looking to add further to those achievements.”

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Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay with Lady Moo Moo who told all the Young Farming Champions they were all part of the cotton family now no matter what industry they represented

I can tell you they were all feeling the cotton love that saw them all presented with an  these superb Australian grown and made Dri-Glow towels and highly appreciative of the Cotton Australia hospitality

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Thanks Cotton Australia we all had a great time and we are very proud to be part of the Australian Cotton Family

Learn more about the Australian cotton industry here

 

Footnote:  Water Saving Cotton http://www.solve.csiro.au/0807/article10.htm

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