The imperatives for a comprehensive training scheme in the cotton industry are easily identifiable: looming skills shortage, new and complex technologies to be adopted, best management practices to be implemented and the principals of sustainable production to be digested. These imperatives are 'knowledge' imperatives, and a cross-industry team has built a prototype training structure to be tested over the next 12-18months. What is not so easily identifiable, and therefore implementable, are our 'knowing' requirements - empathetic understanding of our place in and responsibilities to the world outside the farm or departmental or organisational boundary. Knowledge, through training, has the potential to deliver substantial economic returns, but that potential is unlikely to translate to its promise if cotton industry values and visions remain out of step with those of the broader community. It is only by truly knowing why the community feels the way it does about cotton production and, therefore, why BMP is being implemented, why sustainable production is important, why new technologies are developed - that is, by learning about the learning - that industry and community goals and visions will align and the true potential of a skilled, knowledgeable workforce will be unleashed. That real benefits are returned when knowledge and knowing are combined has been amply demonstrated in this industry by the reversal of fortune of Namoi Cotton Co-operative. Its experience is documented here in a case study.