There isn't another Cotton Fibre Expo (AustralianCFE) like the one held in Australia, in the world. Entrants to the Expo are showcasing to the world the versatility, practicality and uniqueness of cotton. The ACFE ask entrants to be creative as possible, with the only criteria being the need to be made with at least 90% cotton. The categories range from interpretative sections of wearable art, fashion, surface design and "quirky calico" to the more traditional crafts. The Expo organisers received inquiries from design schools around the nation regarding the 2013 expo and its categories, thus we anticipate that 2015 will be full of young and vibrant new design ideas.

The Australian Cotton Fibre Expo seeks to continue educating cotton growers in the Lower Namoi, and the wider community who are involved in cotton production, to the versatility of cotton for the end user. The 2013 expo was again another huge success with entrants being received from varied regions within Australia. Over 400 guests visited the

exhibition. The guests came from within the and wider,

they experienced first-hand the versatility of cotton and how it allows

designers to create their unique pieces.

The fashion parade sponsor Margaret Enklemann also showcased an intriguing

parade on what can be done with materials found on the farm and in

manufacturing plants and how they can too be made into fashionable

garments. Her entire outfit was made solely from cotton/farm items and thus

was interpreted into wearable art.

The expo allows the growers in the region to see how our local cotton is received in

the market, at the end product, and how it is utilised both within the local region

through to the international community.

Growers in the region were given the opportunity to view the items entered

into the expo throughout the two weeks it was open. The fashion garments

were also part of the luncheons fashion parade. Many of the unique items on

show detailed where they were made and how they were made. Some of the

commercial products also had price indications listed which enabled viewers

to see the commercial viability of the product.

The project showcased the role of women in the cotton industry,

demonstrating the importance of a female viewpoint in the business, with keynote speaker, Barbara Grey, a 30 year veteran cotton grower from Muningdi.

Dryland farming systems tour * Grains Update * Nitrogen Forum *NutriLOGIC program *Nitrogen Trials

Travel to attend the Fusarium Laboratory Workshop in June, 2012 offered the opportunity to enhance technical skills as a Plant Pathologist, with emphasis on Fusarium identification. The ability to identify Fusarium species will assist in the identification of these fungi isolated from boll rots, which are becoming an increasing problem for the industry. Enhancing Fusarium identification skills will also enable the identification of Fusarium species capable of infecting cottonseed. Some Fusarium spp. produce mycotoxin, a concern for fuzzy cottonseed intended for feed. This knowledge links with current project DAQ1103.

The purpose of the travel sponsorship was for Dr Guangnan Chen to attend and present a paper on “Developing Life Cycle Inventory for Life Cycle Assessment of Australian Cotton” at the 2013 ALCAS Conference held in Sydney.

The major outcomes are:

• Exchange and discuss the latest research advancement in LCA

• Present a paper on “Developing Life Cycle Inventory for Life Cycle Assessment of Australian Cotton”

• Promote the Australian Cotton industry to the wide Australian and international LCA community

A Cotton Skills Benchmarking system ( http://agskills.com.au ) has been

developed and now needs to be ground-truthed with cotton growers. This report

provides feedback from 1.5-20 industry members about the usability, practicality

and usefulness of the system.

Across these industry members included:

. husband and wife owned manager with no staff

. growers and their staff

. corporate owner with manager and staff

Each of these different structures were able to provide different feedback to

allow for the development of a system suitable to all structures in the industry.

This feedback has been grouped into:

I. Establishment/Login Phase

2. Whole of Site Navigation

3. Language Used

4. Forms

5. Reporting

The recommendations made in this report regarding the above criteria, have been deemed through a process

of engaging with cotton growers. Overall there is very positive response to the

need and practicality of a system such as this, however a number of

recommendations to improve the system have been made. These centre around

three main themes;

I. the need for consistent and intuitive navigational systems throughout the

site to create a pleasurable and productive experience suitable to a range

of people with varying roles within cotton businesses and varying

capabilities

2. the need for the Forms to be able to be completed as quickly and

accurately as possible without compromising the data outputs

3. the need for useful, well presented and highly targeted reporting as the

primary benefit for encouraging grower take up of the system.

These three themes have stimulated a range of suggested improvements to the

site.

Attendance at the 60th Entomological Society of America Annual Conference where a paper on the background of the Australian cotton industry, in particular the Darling Downs landscape, with detail on biology and ecology of helicoverpa punctigera and H. armigera in Australia was presented. Data collection methods and how they will link with the resistance modelling components of the current project "The role of Bt cotton in pest suppressive landscapes' were discussed in detail.

With Dr Nancy Shellhorn and an american Professor Ives, detailed planning and modelling were completed for a series of field experiments for Project CSE1302 9above)

Department of Agriculture and Fisheries applied to purchase a set of 4 drive-on load cells that would enable the department to weigh the departments existing 2 row basket picker, commercial picking equipment (basket pickers and boll buggies) and round plastic wrapped modules. These load cells would allow the assessment of trial plot yields from small to large scale experiments and cater for any style of picking both with small in-house or commercial scale farm equipment. Portable load cells have the advantage of being easily transported to any trial site and allow the quick and efficient weighing of seed cotton on farm without causing significant disruption to a growers picking operation. This would enable research staff to measure the yield of individual field plots for all manner of experiments with a high degree of accuracy.

The Australian Rural Leadership Foundation was established in 1992 based on the premise that developing leaders in rural, regional and remote Australia could influence change across organisations, industries as a whole, and rural communities in general. The ARLF exists to develop leaders for rural, regional and remote Australia. We support the development of leaders for the greater good – no matter where they live or work. The Foundation takes an ethical approach, challenges assumptions and seeks to respectfully influence change for the greater good. Our flagship program is the Australian Rural Leadership Program (ARLP). This program has been running since our inception and we will commence Course 23 in 2016. We currently have over 650 ARLP graduates from throughout Australia. Other educational programs are shorter in length and are either targeted to a specific leadership level or client-focused (organized by a client for their sector). All graduates become life-long members of the Foundation’s network which now numbers over 1,000 leaders. As part of our existing effort we regularly assess and evaluate all our programs. However given the Foundation’s educational philosophy that emphasises people-development through values-based leadership learning, the impacts are difficult to quantify in a simplified manner. So while our existing evaluation measures can provide insight into the impact of our programs on individuals and from an ARLF viewpoint, they do not provide an expression of impact that is easy to communicate to third party investors and other interested parties. The broad objective of the longitudinal evaluation is to identify the influence of the ARLP and other Foundation programs upon the leadership of program graduates and, consequently, the impact of their leadership within regional, remote and rural Australia (and beyond) over time. The ARLF has a unique position relative to other leadership development courses with its focus on RRR Australia. The ARLF has over 25 years developed a flagship program, the ARLP that is premised upon two approaches to leadership development – that it is experientially based and is premised upon reflective practice. Eight core principles develop from this philosophy, each associated with a set of leadership dispositions or capabilities. The aim of each of the ARLF programs seeks to develop/enhance in individuals these dispositions and capabilities.

The 2014 Australian Cotton Comparative Analysis (ACCA) is the tenth report produced

by Boyce Chartered Accountants in conjunction with the Cotton Research &

Development Corporation (CRDC). From 1986 to 2004 the report was compiled

independently by Boyce.

In this report we present an analytical review of the 2014 results, a comparison with prior

years, and comments on emerging trends.

THE NEED TO BENCHMARK

Financial analysis using comparative statistics helps farmers identify relative strengths and weaknesses;

accompanying budgets and long term business plans will then focus on ways to overcome weaknesses and

build on strengths. In other words, this Comparative Analysis is a management tool to implement change and

to identify where effort should be directed on a day to day basis.

Obviously, this analysis does not provide all the answers - it is a benchmark or a standard to strive for. It is up to

management to develop and implement specific action plans based on improved knowledge to set and achieve

new goals.

The reliable, independent figures in the Comparative Analysis provide the starting point for farmers to develop

“best practice”.

If growers or other interested parties require more long term data, note that we started this analysis in 1986.

We encourage participants to discuss the results with us and to clarify any queries so that we all develop a

deeper understanding of the industry.

The primary purpose of the ACCA is to show the income and expenses associated with growing fully irrigated

cotton on a per hectare basis. There are some provisos however to be aware of when considering the information

contained in this report:

• It is important to note that the analysis does not necessarily show the health of the cotton industry.

Where a cotton grower grew skip row cotton or solid cotton that did not receive full water, or grew no fully

irrigated cotton at all, those resulting figures are excluded from the analysis. In most, if not all cases, these

alternate crops would have returned a reduced profit per hectare in comparison to growing fully irrigated

cotton. Therefore, although the grower may have made a healthy per hectare profit on the hectares of fully

irrigated solid cotton grown, the net profit of the total farm would have been significantly less than if fully

irrigated cotton was grown across the full area, allowing for usual rotation practice.

• Readers of this study should be aware that these figures show the average results of participants in the

sample. It is important that users understand this fully.

For example, assume there were only two participants in the sample growing the same area. If one

uses contractors for picking and the other owns their own pickers, the figure for contract picking will

be approximately 50% of the market rate. Similarly, the figures on a per line basis for expenses such as

Depreciation, Repairs & Maintenance, Wages etc. will all be less than market rates. With this knowledge,

users of this information can get additional information from this analysis.

• It should be remembered that if there is a significant change in per line figures, this may not necessarily be

due to price increase.

Line items can be made up of price, frequency of operation and volume per operation. So where there has

been an increase in, for example seed, this could be due to price, number of seeds per metre planted or

the number of plantings, or a combination of all three.

• It is important to understand that where a crop has not been picked due to flooding or some other disaster

other than hail, the expenses relating to the affected area have been excluded from the sample.

So care should be taken when using the results from this analysis. Understanding the basis on which the

analysis is constructed is the key to getting the most out of its study.

OUR SAMPLE

The analysis includes the results for farmers who were able to plant, grow and pick their crop using close

to normal irrigation practices. This year the total number of hectares in the sample decreased due to a

decrease in the availability of water throughout many of the cotton growing areas of Australia and a reduction

in the participants.

The average hectares planted per participant increased slightly from 1,518 hectares in 2013 to 1,593 hectares

in 2014. The total number of bales in the sample was just on 500,000, which is approximately 13% of total

Australian cotton production. Final estimates for the 2014 year were 414,000 hectares and production of

3,830,000 bales.

Whilst recognising marketing as an important part of management, growers and interested parties were

concerned that participants in the top 20% may be there solely due to receiving a high cotton price, not as a

result of good farming practices. Alternatively, good cotton growers, due to adverse currency, lint and basis

positions, may have been excluded from the top 20%.

As many growers review their operation against the top 20% to look for areas of improvement, it was suggested

that the top 20% and bottom 20% be selected using an average price. We have therefore selected the top 20%

and bottom 20% by substituting $473 (the average 2014 net price for all participants) for the average net price

that the individual grower actually received.

Although the average price was used to select the participants in the top and bottom 20%, the growers’ actual

sales figures are reported in this analysis.

Seed fingers are an important part of the gin stand and are used to control the seed roll load, which in turn sets the turn-out and trash cleaning capacity of the gin stand. Yet mechanically the seed fingers are undeveloped in terms of their control and ability to be set. Currently, the fingers are set manually by the ginner who typically selects and then fixes a mechanical setting. There are no readings or dials to help reinforce the appropriateness of this setting, just visual inspection of seed flow and gin motor amperages by the ginner. Moreover, the force applied by the seed roll across the gin stand varies depending on the loading of seed-cotton across the gin stand.

Recent research by CSIRO has indicated that seed roll density and the forces that the seed roll exerts on seed roll casing constantly change, yet the seed fingers are usually fixed in the same position for extended periods. Indeed, seed roll density can change significantly many times over a one minute period as material in the seed roll is charged and discharged. High seed roll loading typically means low residual lint and longer fibre length, while low loading typically means poorer lint removal and lower fibre length. High trash and moisture also affect the loading on the seed roll. However, a ginner does not alter the seed fingers for these changes, and moreover does not change the seed fingers routinely because of the inconvenience in stopping the gin stand to make adjustments. The development of an automated, self adjusting system of seed fingers is proposed to overcome these variances in the loading of the seed roll. The outcomes of implementing such a system are better gin productivity and fibre quality in terms of grade (trash content), length and neps.