Cotton

Singapore-based cotton giant Louis Dreyfus Company is set to acquire 100 per cent of Namoi Cotton shares.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed the NT government awarded a $35,000 contract to check whether a green group's report claims about the development of a major cotton industry were correct, false or overstated.

About 150 people have attended the official opening of the NT's first cotton gin, which cost about $70 million to build.

Northern Territory traditional owners have used a 13-metre-long painting to petition the Federal Government to protect rivers and springs from new gas and cotton industry developments.

In front of an enormous map they had made back with their communities in the Northern Territory, traditional owners told federal politicians they are deeply concerned about the over extraction of water from their life-blood waterways.

For many Murray-Darling Basin communities, the water provides far more than what's grown on the land. Talk of drought and water buybacks have some worried about the future.

As the federal government's proposed changes head to debate in the Senate, a committee has backed the use of buybacks to meet recovery targets, and called for more scrutiny of water-saving projects, and greater First Nations involvement.

A major cotton operation in New South Wales is producing verified carbon-positive cotton and global companies with sustainable sourcing targets are paying up to $60 extra a bale for it. To guard against substitution at overseas spinning mills, the raw cotton is impregnated with pigments like those used to verify paper money and passports.

Australia's legacy cotton country is once again bone-dry, but some of the area's largest growers have set their sights on an unlikely part of Australia where the grass might just be greener.

A major NSW cotton operation says it is producing the world's first verified, carbon-positive cotton, for which global companies with sustainable sourcing targets are paying up to $80 more for a bale.

A major station at the centre of the NT’s expanding cotton industry has been found guilty of unlawful land clearing and will be fined. But environment groups say the sanction is a "slap on the wrist".

Tarwoo Station, where a major cotton gin is due to open this year, will be fined more than $7,000 after it was found to have committed land clearing offences. 

"Bank-less" cotton systems are now removing cotton banks and release water in stages - getting water on and off crops quicker. This has saved water, provided efficiencies, increased yields and is less labour intensive

Cotton growers have used siphons for decades to transfer water from channels over a bank onto the crop, but a few farmers are making the switch in an effort to save water.

With the NSW government chipping in $36 million, the project at Moree aims to produce green hydrogen, renewable ammonia, and solar power to lower fertiliser and fuel emissions by displacing 1.4 million litres of imported diesel.

Queensland farmer "Sno" Harm has seen many El Niño weather patterns in his 50 years of growing cotton. He says he "can't really prepare" for the next drought and remains hopeful for rain.

Record-breaking winter rain is sweeping across Queensland, keeping temperatures low — but the far north will soon be in for a scorcher.

There's been a rise in cotton growers in the Wide Bay region, despite the climate not being ideal.

Cotton is known as a desert crop, but farms are appearing in unexpected regions across Queensland — even in traditional cane country.

Australian cotton growers have had a "crackingly busy" harvest that's expected to fetch around $3.9 billion, thanks to a near-perfect season in Queensland's south west.

The NT government's strategy proposes changing laws to allow pastoral leases be used for growing crops, as environmental groups accuse the government of again acting recklessly to grow the economy.

A region renowned for its golden sunflowers has a new drawcard that's raking in tourists, social media snaps — and dollars.

Lawyers and farmers say the government's response to the subsidence of land near gas projects is like a "bandaid on a volcano" and they have no confidence in its ability to tackle the problem.   

Bombs, guns, planes and cotton pickers. Ex-ADF personnel are heading back to school to learn the ropes on farms to help fill the agricultural industry's worker shortage.

Australia's cotton harvest has kicked off, with the industry working to shore up alternative export markets two-and-half years on from the China trade ban.