Growers at a CottonInfo carbon and biodiversity pilot workshop in the Macquarie have recommended that “these are topics we can no longer ignore – all growers should attend”.
CottonInfo NRM Technical Lead Stacey Vogel with fellow CRDC Innovation Broker Dr Nicola Cottee and CottonInfo Program Manager Janelle Montgomery worked on requests from growers to create a program.
The pilot event at Nevertire (Wiradjuri country) in February featured presentations from CottonInfo Climate and Energy Technical Lead Jon Welsh on carbon, while Trangie farmer Alex Quigley from Louis Dreyfus Company spoke about sustainability and cotton markets. Farm aggregation and carbon markets were covered by Stacey and Andrew Ward from Regen Farmers Mutual, with Central West Local Land Services’ Dr Chioma Igwenagu talking about natural capital support.
“The workshop provided an opportunity for growers to better understand their on-farm natural capital and the market opportunities and risks,” Stacey said.
“We worked with the Macquarie Cotton Grower Association to design this event based on the questions they had. We’re really pleased with the outcome, because judging by the feedback there is definitely an appetite for more of what we covered in more context and more depth.”
Jon’s presentation ‘soil carbon and broadacre cropping systems’, covered carbon cycling, managing, measuring and monetising soil carbon and created much discussion.
“We had a really engaged group, who in their feedback said they’d like more in-depth information across the topics in my presentation,” Jon said.
“It really shows the appetite for information and is something that I’ve found is always strong in the cotton industry: it’s one of its strengths.
“Growers are pretty straight-forward, they want to know what the research findings are, what they need to know, and how they can act on it if they want to.
“In the carbon domain, independent R&D and advice is pretty hard to come by, which I think is part of the reason we had such a great response.
“With basically all Australian cotton being exported, we need to better understand the queries from our trading partners and market access requirements on carbon and biodiversity. A big takeaway was that all of us have to be conversant in sustainability and the farming system – not just one person or one employee.”
Billy Browning farms at Narramine Station with his family and says the workshop gave him a better understanding of improving soil carbon and biodiversity, and the value it holds.
“It was an excellent insight into the carbon world, as Jon is a great presenter who is able to give us information from an independent standpoint,” Billy said.
“It was also an eye-opener as to the biodiversity avenue, learning that there’s a potential market that exists totally separate to the soil carbon space. We have value in our support land (native vegetation and riparian zones) we didn’t realise was there.
“It was such a valuable day, and we left so much better informed, that our organising committee felt disappointed for the local growers who couldn’t be there as well.”
This article appears courtesy of the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC). It was published in the (Autumn 2025) edition of CRDC’s Spotlight magazine: www.crdc.com.au/spotlight
