The release of INGARD&quote;' cotton has presented the opportunity to study grower attitudes to the control and distribution of genetic material protected by plant and technology patents and trademarks. INGARD' cotton is the first major release of this type in Australia where growers have to enter into legally binding contracts ( licenses ) to use the plant. This study has been undertaken as part of a PhD program funded by a University Scholarship. The first survey was conducted in June 1997 and followed preliminary interviews and information gathering primarily in the Gwydir Valley. The survey focused on growers attitudes regarding issues involved with the release of the transgenic cotton INGARD. A total of 29 responses were received; 19 from growers of both conventional and INGARD cotton and 10 from growers of conventional cotton. Data collected was analyzed on SPSS (a statistical analysis package). Frequency distributions were tabulated to reveal the strength and range of responses to questions. Factor analysis was undertaken on sets of questions to find associations within the sets which affect the adoption of the technology. The size growers' of plantings varied from 40 hectares to 5600 hectares of conventional cotton with about half below 700 hectares and half above 1300 hectares. Some INGARD growers were growing seed crops as well as INGARD under commercial licenses and some growers had more than one INGARD license because they have more than one property. INGARD areas varied from 28 hectares to 570 hectares. The format of the questions varied from yes/no answers to others in which growers were asked to rate their response on a scale of I to 7 (one reflecting low importance or low acceptability and seven reflecting high importance or high acceptability). There is a possible area of ambiguity in this if the respondent did not closely follow the question because importance of a factor and acceptability of a factor can have an inverse relationship. Growers were asked to include comments if they felt this helped in their response. The comments received were wide ranging and provided insight into growers' thoughts. Unfortunately this paper is too short to include the comments although they support the general trend in responses. Further analysis will be conducted on the comments and a full transcripts available in the longer version of this paper.