Cotton Growing

Grapes, cotton and grains are blooming out of Queensland's desert red dirt, prompting the beginning of a brand new industry. But can the dusty outback become more than just grazing land?

A cotton industry advocate says dryland crops are at risk if the regulator lowers the usage rate of a chemical that has been linked to Parkinson's disease.

A foreign company has acquired Australia's biggest cotton ginning business for about $160 million, ending an eight-month bidding war and intervention by the competition watchdog.

One of Australia's remotest agricultural regions would almost double in size under an ambitious plan announced by the West Australian government.

Cotton processed near Katherine and exported from Darwin will be a significant cost-saver for Northern Territory producers hoping its proximity to Asia will give it a competitive advantage.

The Northern Territory government has rejected accusations it is flouting its own land and water laws to facilitate a new cotton industry, as calls grow for a federal inquiry. 

Monday’s Four Corners program shone a spotlight on a little-known quasi-government body called the NT Land Corporation. Where did it come from? What power does it have? And what scrutiny is there? 

There are fears that sacred, pristine sites are being put at risk by a government-backed push to grow cotton in the outback.

Faced with successive natural disasters, lifelong farmers are choosing to leave Queensland's 'salad bowl'. It has community leaders worried.

Once devoid of insect life, Australian cotton paddocks are now teeming with spiders and other animals as the cotton industry moves further away from pesticide use.

Cotton Australia says there has been a significant increase in licensed products bearing the homegrown mark and expects shoppers to see more of it in stores.

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.