Operationalisation of the Strategic Roadmap for Australian Cotton has commenced, with Cotton Australia and CRDC committed to a range of projects to move the process forward.
Both organisations have identified the need for further research and discovery before value propositions for industry can be identified, and investment decisions made.
“It’s really important that while we know we need to move fast, we take our growers and the industry with us on this new path to ensure we are aligning with new global requirements of our markets, brand and retail customers,” Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay said.
The key steps forward by topic are:
- Certified Cotton from Australia: a comprehensive review of myBMP has been commissioned by the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) that will assess the program’s current effectiveness, relevance, future fitness and ability to meet new global requirements. The research will provide recommendations for a revised myBMP program, and will ensure growers, researchers and industry all contribute to it outcomes via a broad consultation process.
- Traceability: Cotton Australia has secured a Queensland Government grant to identify traceability requirements and investigate and test solutions. The research is in its second phase and piloting of traceability solutions expected during the next cotton season.
- Data: Alignment between CRDC’s Data Platform Project and the Roadmap will ensure the data platform will deliver a number of important outcomes including efficiency gains at farm level, the ability to report sustainability data at industry level, integration with myBMP, as well as providing farm-level impact data if required in future.
- Human Rights: This topic will be included in the review of myBMP to ensure the social compliance aspects of cotton production in Australia are properly covered. Two research projects are being considered: to independently assess human rights risk on Australian cotton farms, and to identify the evidence required to verify and meet new global requirements that may be over and above Australian law.
- Marketing: This topic is on hold until the others develop further, and more is known about what the marketing credentials and offering for Australian cotton will be in future. In the meantime, Cotton Australia is looking at research to quantify the value of the Cotton to Market program and its engagement with customers to drive demand beyond the spinning mill customer.