Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay recently attended the 3-day Northern Australia Food Futures Conference in the Northern Territory which provided another valuable focus on cotton along with several key announcements aimed at growing agriculture to a $2 billion industry by 2030. Kay addressed 500 people at the event on water efficiency while meeting with growers and other stakeholders including government ministers and industry leaders.

The Northern Territory government used the opportunity to launch their agribusiness strategy which includes 100,000 hectares of broad acre cropping, including cotton in the NT, Cotton Australia said in a press release.

In supporting various targets, the Northern Territory government highlighted the need for adding value-chain facilities including cotton gins and forecast changing the permitted use of existing pastoral land tenure to include cropping and horticultural activities while reducing timeframes for obtaining land clearing and water licensing approvals.

Cotton Australia welcomed the strategy and pledged to work closely with the government and all stakeholders in achieving appropriate agribusiness development in a sustainable manner.

The Environment Centre NT attacked the announcement including a suggestion the strategy would ‘fuel more destructive land clearing.’ Jo Townsend, the chief executive officer of the NT Department of Environment, Parks and Water, said at the conference that “there is no substance to any of the claims made” by the NT Environment Centre.

The event also provided a platform for the launch of the Cotton, Grains, and Cattle (CGC) Programme which aims to maximize the productivity of cropping and beef production farming systems in the Kununurra (Ord) Region of Western Australia and in the Katherine and Douglas Daly regions of the Northern Territory, and in developing crop production areas of north Queensland (Gilbert River system).

The intention of the programme is to support the further development of integrated CGC farming systems, through research, development, and extension projects including optimizing agronomy and enabling cropping diversity, crop protection, and biosecurity.