The cotton industry in the Gwydir Valley, like most forms of agriculture, is reliant on a range of 'free' ecosystem, services such as clean irrigation water, breakdown of chemicals in soils and water storages, natural control of, pests by beneficial fauna, and spray drift containment by adjacent vegetation. These services have hitherto been, unpriced, but growers and the community incur substantial costs when such services are lost through ignorance or, mismanagement. This project aimed to determine the economic value of some of the ecosystem services, underpinning the cotton industry, and investigate the interaction between best-management practices and, performance of these ecological services