The CRDC Board responded to the Review Report in September 2023, welcoming the overall findings as an endorsement of CRDC’s high level of organisational performance and valuing the recommendations as important guidance on areas for continuous improvement. 

Under CRDC's Funding Agreement with the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, CRDC is required to commission an independent review of its performance. The most recent independent review was conducted by Forest Hill Consulting in 2023. 

A typical review conducted by Forest Hill categorises recommendations as: critical (should be implemented as a matter of urgency in order for CRDC to meet its legal and regulatory obligations); important (actions that are expected to deliver significant benefits to the organisation and industry) or better practice (expected to deliver incremental performance improvements).

The Independent Performance Review was completed in September 2023 and made eight recommendations in total: no critical recommendations; two important recommendations; and six best practice recommendations. 

The 2022-23 year marked the fifth and final year under the CRDC Strategic RD&E Plan 2018–23. The strategic RD&E investments that CRDC made in 2022-23 under this plan are helping to drive the Australian cotton industry towards a future of innovation, increased commercialisation and digital transformation.

In 2022-23, Australian cotton growers and the Australian Government co-invested $17.7 million through CRDC into cotton RD&E, across 189 projects and in collaboration with 86 research partners. The investments were made in the five key areas identified in the Strategic RD&E Plan: increasing productivity and profitability on Australian cotton farms; improving cotton farming sustainability and value chain competitiveness; building the adaptive capacity of the Australian cotton industry; strengthening partnerships and adoption; and driving RD&E impact.

In this report, we bring you an update on our progress towards our strategic goals – our investments, our innovations, and our impacts – five years into our Strategic RD&E Plan 2018-23.

• Integrated assessment of N-cycle (waterways, groundwater and atmosphere) off-farm contributions in three key catchments to the Cotton industry.
• Surface water quality assessment of major waterways in three cotton growing catchments: Murrumbidgee, Namoi and Nogoa Rivers.
• Bi-monthly longitudinal study of nutrients, major ion and N isotopic contributions from selected sites of the three catchments studied.
• Capture of a major high flow event in selected catchments to compare with dynamics observed during average or low flow conditions.
• Sampling of shallow groundwater in cotton growing regions to assess potential transfers of nutrients to groundwater and potential denitrification pathways (all catchments). Specifically, in the Lower Murrumbidgee, extend the assessment to deeper aquifers.
• Hydrochemical and isotopic characterisation of selected artificial end-members (i.e. fertilisers) to compare to signatures identified in the studied catchments.
• Measurements of site-specific N2O concentrations and site specific N2O Isotopes (δ15Nα, δ15Nβ, δ18O) for assessing district scale nitrous oxide emissions in the studied regions.

Over four years from 2019 to 2023, the Rural Research and Development for Profit Round 2 project, ‘Area Wide Management (AWM) for cropping systems weeds: investigating the weed management, social and economic opportunity’ explored the potential for an AWM approach to weed management. The Grains Research and Development Corporation was the project proponent, and contracted CSIRO to implement the project. The project involved a multidisciplinary team of researchers and regional facilitators, as sub-contracted by CSIRO. The project involved three regional trials in Sunraysia, Riverina and Darling Downs with project-wide research in herbicide resistance, genetics, social science and economics.

Colere Group was engaged as an independent evaluator by GRDC. Separate to the evaluation, Colere Group also facilitated two of the project’s face-to-face workshops (Mildura in June 2022 and the final project workshop in Sydney, May 2023). This enabled the lead evaluator to establish relationships across the project team and gain a deeper understanding of the project. The evaluation has been informed by desktop review of project documentation (as available prior to 10 May 20231), observations at the workshops and monthly online meetings and semi- structured interviews of the project team and Steering Committee. Insights from the evaluation guided the discussion topics at the final project workshop, however this workshop was not an evaluation workshop and forms part of the project’s research activities.

This project provided an NRM Technical Lead 1.5 days a week and a Biodiversity R&D Manager 1.5days a week. The NRM Technical Lead role assisted the industry continuously improve its BMP recommendations for NRM on cotton farms. This was achieved through the development and implementation of annual CottonInfo Operating Plans, annual reviews and updates to myBMP and industry BMP guides and the development and implementation of tools, products & activities and collaborations.   

This project, despite challenges with drought, COVID and flooding, led the successful implementation of all research and extension activities under the 3.5yr collaborative grant project ‘Cotton Landcare Tech Innovations’. In 2022 the success of the project was acknowledged with project team becoming a finalist in the 2022 Australian Cotton Industry Researcher of the Year Award. 

The project delivered a number of products and tools which have assisted the industry meet its environmental sustainability targets such as the CottonInfo Biodiversity management in cotton landscapes webtool , Native Revegetation guide and the QUT social science research which identify strategies that would help growers strengthen biodiversity management actions on farm.   

In addition a collaborative partnerships was formed with NRM Regions Australia and the 7 regional NRM bodies in cotton growing areas which led to the establishment of the Draft Native vegetation Sustainability Targets and priorities and a methodology for reporting change overtime.  

This project has undertaken extensive climate analysis and extension to help cotton growers manage risk in their businesses. The CottonInfo Moisture Manager is published monthly and showed good engagement with analytics showing high open rates throughout the project term. Climate risk was also presented to students enrolled in the UNE cotton production course annually. Ag Econ also helped direct cross-sectoral research via FWFA and MCV research projects, with a published study on changes in summer rainfall focusing on cotton-growing regions a highlight. A range of economic analyses was undertaken on farming practices alongside routine Gross Margin tasks throughout this project including: cotton picker investment analysis - buy or contract?, enhanced efficiency and fertiliser best practice analysis, irrigation water benchmarking, and two studies on emerging opportunities for grower participation in biodiversity markets. While AE2101 is an analysis-based project, e-news analytics for economic analysis showed good industry engagement as evidenced by record open rates and click-through's for the cotton picker analysis. Energy technology benefit-cost studies identified three possible investment areas to reduce emissions and lower energy cost: micro-hydro in irrigation, floating solar PV to offset pumping costs and save water and floating solar PV used to offset cotton ginning energy costs and produce green ammonia. While these results found reduced emissions and tardi investment returns in some cases, changes in future energy costs and growing demand for sustainable cotton may see these opportunities implemented in the future.

• Aware of all relevant NRM research and emerging issues; Takes a leadership role among relevant researchers 

• Leads the development of NRM extension programs, products, tools & activities 

• Leads the development, implementation & monitoring and evaluation of CottonInfo’s AOP for NRM   

• Reviews industry’s best practice recommendations for NRM 

• CottonInfo networking 

This Guide provides you with a comprehensive summary of the key cotton crop protection issues, and is brought to you by CRDC and the Australian cotton industry's joint extension program, CottonInfo.

The Spring 2023 edition of Spotlight takes a deep dive into the 2022 Sustainability Update. While the industry has made  significant gains in areas such as water use efficiency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are up. As a result, this edition includes some articles on CRDC investments into R&D to help growers and post-farm gate sectors to reduce emissions.

It also looks at the new CRDC 2023-28 Strategic RD&E Plan, Clever Cotton, which is structured around the themes of Paddock, People and Planet – in line with the Australian Cotton Industry Sustainability Framework. CRDC’s investments under these pillars is overseen by CRDC's Innovation Brokers, and in this edition, we introduce (or reintroduce) you to each of them, along with CRDC's innovation administrators, business and finance and communications and extension teams. This edition also marks a farewell to CRDC's former Executive Director, Ian Taylor. 

Clever Cotton outlines CRDC’s ambition and new approach featuring larger programs of research investment, rather than individual projects. It kicked off with the new $10 million Australian Cotton Disease Collaboration (ACDC), which CRDC announced in July. CRDC has listened to growers and crop managers who have been calling for more help to manage disease and have received an overwhelming response to the call for potential partners.

In this edition, we also take a look at some of CRDC's most impactful investments under the last strategic plan, which finished in June. A benefit-cost analysis has found that some of CRDC's major collaborative projects have delivered the greatest return to growers. The analysis found that WAND, the Weather and Networked Data (WAND) partnership with GRDC and Goanna Ag, will deliver a benefit-cost of $12.54 to $1 – that is, a $12.54 return to growers for every dollar invested over the period 2023-2030.

All this, and more, in Spotlight.