Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) has undertaken research, within its Cotton Industry Workforce Development Project, into defining cotton agribusiness sector (resellers, suppliers of goods and services and service providers’ particularly private agronomists / consultants) needs for professional cotton industry personnel. These have been defined as primarily to assure the sector of the availability and retention of skilled and engaged staff; followed by continued professional development, to support both their retention and increased skill levels.

A potential strategy to assist in responding to this challenge has been identified, and is termed the Cotton Professional Personnel Program. The Program revolves around a central concept of establishing a ‘Network’, which connects cotton agribusinesses directly with potential employees, in this case school and university aged students. This is proposed to be through a range of strategies including:

 Internship programs

 Graduate programs

 Mentoring programs, and

 Scholarship programs.

Project GSA1401 – A proposed Cotton Professional Personnel Program Page | 3

Commercial-In-Confidence

Previous work indicates willingness for key cotton agribusinesses to support such a Program. Most respondents from a core representative group stated their intention to directly engage with the Program. As a result the concept of a pilot project to trial the Program was developed from the previous work in a bid to assure the industry that such a Program would be valued and would work in practice.

A pilot project has been suggested as a way of 'ground truthing' the extent to which the cotton agribusiness sector will embrace the proposed Cotton Professional Personnel Program. . A survey of key cotton agribusiness respondents was undertaken to gauge the level of interest and buy-in to the pilot project.

As a result of this survey 9-12 respondents could reasonably become collaborators in the pilot project. All respondents were prepared to engage in all aspects of the Program subject to further workshopping of the finer details. This also means that the draft of the Program will need to be developed beforehand, so it can be reviewed with the invited collaborators, prior to trialing.

As there was agreement to the core elements of the proposed Program, this is best finetuned operationally through a structured project management process. This will involve creating systems and processes that can be refined in an initial workshop with the collaborators, and then managed into a truly operational and functional system to be trialed on-ground.

The ultimate outcome of the pilot is then expected to be a Cotton Professional Personnel Program which has stronger fit with the needs of cotton agribusiness sector, the Cotton Workforce Development Strategy and ultimately provide a more stable cotton industry through an assured supply of key professional personnel.

The survey Key findings are:

 All respondents believe that the proposed Cotton Professional Personnel Program would be valuable both for their own organisation and for the wider cotton industry, resulting in a positive impact.

 All saw value in the Program supporting engagement between employers and students (school and universities) to seek future employees and in engaging with key universities notably CSU, UNE, USQ and UQ.

 It was noted that there are strong synergies with the CCA Young Member Network – and that administrative and operational factors would need to be addressed, ideally in a common manner, across the whole industry using the Program as some form of catalyst.

 All respondents were prepared to host a school or university student placement at their organisation, on the basis that finer detail would be determined on project commencement.

 A range of specific placements with details regarding operations were identified.

 All respondents were willing to participate in a mentoring program.

 They saw it being valuable in its own right, while assisting in / informing the better structuring / planning of an industry program could also inform their own programs.