News

CRDC and Cotton Australia are supporting a partnership between iconic Australian brands Country Road and Landcare Australia to improve biodiversity on cotton farms in the Namoi Valley of NSW.

Today is World Cotton Day: a day to celebrate the beautiful natural fibre that is cotton, and all who help grow it. We're pleased to play our part in this great industry through our world-leading cotton research, development and innovation.

CRDC has welcomed the appointment of six directors to the CRDC Board by the Hon. David Littleproud MP. Led by incumbent Chair Mr Richard Haire and CRDC’s Executive Director Dr Ian Taylor, the CRDC Board will comprise former directors Les Copeland and Rosemary Richards, who have been returned for a second term on the CRDC Board, and new directors Ross Burnett, Dr Gary Fitt, Dr Danielle Kennedy and Peta Slack-Smith.

The head of the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, departmental secretary Andrew Metcalfe AO, visited CRDC and the research hub of Narrabri yesterday.

CRDC research partner CSIRO is leading a new international research project to understand and manage fall armyworm (FAW), with support from CRDC.

While the Australian cotton industry has had a major focus on sustainability in 2020, so too has the global cotton industry - particularly ensuring that brands and retailers keen to source sustainable cotton can access credible, consistent and comparable ways to measure impact data across the various cotton sustainability standards.

The Regional Wellbeing Survey (RWS) is an annual survey that measures the subjective wellbeing of people living in rural and regional Australia. CRDC is encouraging all those in the cotton community who live rurally and regionally to take part in the survey.

CRDC has recently entered into an agreement to support SataCrop, the tool designed to mitigate the risk of spray drift by allowing operators to understand where sensitive crops are located in proximity to their spray operation.

Minimising spray drift is a high priority for Australian agriculture, with the grains and cotton industries joining to develop a hazardous weather warning system to provide real-time weather data and alerts to growers and spray operators.