Australian farmers have taken cotton farming to a new level over the last decade, with a report showing the industry has complied with every recommendation in its first independent environmental assessment conducted in 1991. Rachel Holloway, CRDC Research Program Co-ordinator, discusses the findings with Robert Eveleigh, CSD.

Rachel, I thought we might talk about the second Environmental Audit that was completed some time ago and the industry has just made a response to that, but before we start, why was the second audit conducted?

The second audit was conducted, its been about 12 years since the first audit was initiated and in that time there has been significant changes within the industry for environmental management so it was time to see where we were up to as an industry and document this.

What were the main issues that were really identified as a problem back in 1991?

The major one in the first audit was pesticide management. There were issues about spraying and aerial application, ground rig application and there was concern within the community about spray issues. The second issue that came up in the first audit was water use and management but really pesticide was the main focus.

Moving on to what’s happened since that first audit then, could you make some comments as to how things have improved or not improved with regard to the pesticide management?

There has been some significant improvements in pesticide management and some of these, all have had contributions to improve pesticide management within the industry and they are things like the Best Management Practice Program which has been a management system that has developed things like pesticide application management plans to help growers manage their risks on cotton farms. From talking to neighbours to documenting information with their aerial applicators and their ground rig applicators through to developing plans or conversations just with their cotton consultants about how they are going to manage pesticides for the season. That’s been one of the major changes in pesticide management on cotton farms. But the other one is things like technology so for the example the INGARD® cotton technology has really changed pesticide use within the cotton industry.

We have moved away from pesticide management as being a major issue but you mentioned before that water use was identified as an issue in the earlier audit. Has that been identified as still an issue in the second audit?

Most definitely and water has become probably one of the main issues in the second audit where the industry needs to develop the recommendations that came through so the industry needs to further improve on water use and management within the cotton industry.

Some of the other things I noticed in there were vegetation. Were there any issues with regard to vegetation management around farms? I guess they are talking about native vegetation?

In the audit that we have just conducted, vegetation was seen as an issue that’s come up in terms of the riparian management and how we manage those issues on farm. Within that vegetation management is things like tree plantings or how you manage that native vegetation with respect to the production of cotton. I suppose some of the research that we have conducted in the last couple of years is the effects of what types of vegetation that you plant on a farm and how they can impact on the cotton crop. The classic example is the beneficial insects that go into a cotton crop and ultimately help control heliothis.

Is that the only issue that still needs to be improved or in it’s response to that audit, what things need to be improved further before we can say the industry is on a very solid footing?

I think this second environmental audit has really shown that we are on a solid environmental footing. The changes that have taken place in the last 10 years are pretty amazing if you put them on a time line. The response to the environmental audit shows that the industry has probably 50 – 70% started improving on those, or actually made actions to carry out those recommendations from the first audit so some of the other issues that were identified in the second audit were things like waste management and also things like land use so those sort of issues are dealing with things like the Drum Muster Program and we know that the industry is involved in the Drum Muster Program but there are some issues about how effectively the program is working and can we make it more effective on cotton farms in terms of managing waste.

They are probably, the three major issues in the second audit were water management and use so growers doing the whole farm water balances and being able to demonstrate their water use efficiency. But as an industry we can already show that we have got resources out there to help growers start to benchmark this type of information so through the use of things like WaterPak, the research program and extension program delivered by the NSW DPI and the Queenland DPI and the Extension Team, the Cotton CRC Extension Team are all things to show that as an industry we are actively improving on farm water use information for growers.

That was the second audit, in view of what you said, that there have been some pretty dramatic improvements. Will there be a need for a third audit?

At the moment, the recommendation from the second audit was that the industry should be looking at having an audit every 5 years. Now the industries said that they will review this but I think that the feeling within the industry is that we may need to have a full scale environmental audit again but maybe we look at specific research areas and we go down to a different detail level within those areas so it could be something maybe in a couple of years time we do a review on water or fertilizer management or waste management so that we get a bit more of a thorough examination of that area.

The second environmental audit was a very broad audit that I think encompassed audits of say 20 or 30 farms so if we need to review as an industry if we really need to do a full scale environmental audit again and that will be a decision that will be taken up by the Australian Cotton Industry Council. So that’s the response to the recommendations on the second environmental audit.

Further Information:
Robert Eveleigh