The NSW Government through its $50.8M World Class Food & Fibre 2 program allocated $5.7M to the upgrade of soil and plant research infrastructure at the Australian Cotton Research Institute (ACRI) based at Narrabri to meet the current and future research capability requirement to underpin food and fibre production in NSW. The project involved the construction and installation of equipment to support the operation of a new Plant Propagation facility and a new Soil and Plant Processing facility. These new facilities will support research into key research areas for the industry in agronomy, entomology, pathology, nutrition and soils.

CRDC provided a capital contribution of $475,000 to the ACRI program to facilitate the purchase of critical research equipment for the new facilities including:

- Growth Cabinet - Steridum PLEDT-RH500

- Leaf Area Machine - Licor LI-3100C

- Incubator - Steridum i170 

- Soil Oven - ODH50 

- Bioline Growth Room BDW80, and

- Laboratory Water Purification System, and

- 160KVA Diesel Generator

The equipment has been installed and is being used by research teams in the delivery of current CRDC funded research projects.

The Grains Research & Development Corporations (GRDC) also contributed an allocation of capital funds ($786,216) to the establishment of the 2 new facilities at ACRI. GRDC acknowledged that many cotton growers are also grain growers and that grain production is component of the cotton farming system.