The purpose of this paper is to outline the Australian cotton industry's concerns and position on the new US Farm Bill, currently being negotiated by the House of Representatives (House) and Senate and the pot

Water Use Efficiency WUE) means maximising the returns from and minimising the environmental impacts of every megalitre (ML) of water used for irrigation purposes.

The Australian cotton growers for the past 5 years have come to realise the important role beneficial insects play in managing pests in their cotton farms.

This topic goes to the heart of the current crisis in the Australian cotton marketing system. The cotton industry is currently in a state of shock.

A water management approach commonly used by cotton growers in the Condamine - Lower Balonne catchment area is to divide farm storages into several cells.

The Australian Cotton Cooperative Research Centre in association with the Cotton Research and Development Cooperation have funded a number of soil inventory projects which have produced enormous amount of soil data.

In some major producing countries, up to half of the returns to cotton farmers come from government subsidies.

The adoption of biopesticides by the cotton industry in Australia has been impressive.

The Assassin Bug, is a natural enemy that is showing considerable promise in controlling Heliothis and plant-sucking bugs in cotton.

In 1998 when we first started Benchmarking we were not sure what we were going to find.

Two years ago we rolled into a new century, a new millennium.

In recent years late season populations of stinkbugs (green vegetable bug and green stink bug) have caused considerable damage in some cotton crops (Simpson et al. 2000, Khan and Bauer 2001).

The world's textile industry has gone through structural changes and there are rapid moves toward industrial reorganization in Asian countries in pursue of the progress in the developed countries.

There is no doubt that water is the limiting factor on an farms. It is argued about passionately and has entered a very public arena with demands from environmental, political, community and agricultural sectors.

We are currently evaluating unsprayed strip crops planted beside dryland INGARD cotton as nurseries for beneficial arthropods.

This paper aims to present the breeder's understanding of fibre and variety characteristics for the next decade.

Irrigators are frequently accused of causing a deterioration of water quality in the Murray Darting Basin.

Elsewhere in this proceedings I have stated that the cotton industry in Australia is undertaking a journey towards the adoption of a true IPM.

The CSIRO Advanced Lines Trial (ALT) has been run cooperatively by CSIRO and DPIQ for 28 years and is used as the last stage in our breeding line evaluation.

For many years researchers have espoused the view that nature's helpers (natural enemies, beneficials, predators and parasitoids) are a free resource that has not been well utilised in our pest management appr