Cotton gin plants seed for northern industry

There’s more on offer from a blooming northern cotton industry than lint. It’s another cotton by-product that has growers excited.

Kimberley Agricultural Investments general manager Jim Engelke in a Goomig cotton field in Western Australia’s Ord Valley. Picture: Colin Murty/The Australian

Northern Australia’s blooming cotton industry is expected to ­double in production next year and take off even further on the back of the construction of two local gins.

Work on a cotton gin, where lint is removed from the seed, in Katherine in the Northern Territory is nearly finished and construction is under way on a second facility near Kununurra in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

It will give the producers who have been growing cotton in the two states in the past few years an opportunity to reduce transport costs and plan for bigger crops.

Previously, cotton picked in the WA and NT had to be trucked about 3600km to Dalby in southeastern Queensland to be ginned.

In WA, the expected 2025 opening of the $60m gin has some excited that the Ord Valley’s long-heralded potential as a food and fibre powerhouse could finally by realised.

Buttressed by the massive water resource of Lake Argyle, the region already has several horticultural industries, but it is the rapid expansion of the cotton industry and the flow-on effects that have led to a wave of new investment in the region in recent years.

Kimberley Agricultural Investments general manager Jim Engelke, who is also chairman of the Kimberley Cotton Company, the joint investment that is behind the construction of the gin, said new irrigation land was already slated for preparation ahead of the opening of the local gin.

Boabs growing by the Gibb River Road at Cockburn Range, in the Kimberley, Western Australia. The region has several horticultural industries, including cotton. Picture: Getty Images

“With proximity and freight and all that, it makes it viable to put in big areas because we just couldn’t put the big areas in with the freight situation the way it was,” he said.

“As soon as you take that freight bottleneck out of it, you can increase the area so we’ll begin getting all those farms ready for cotton and maize production as of next year, since we’ve got the cotton gin being built now.”

Mr Engelke, who will speak at The Australian’s Bush Summit in Perth on Monday, said cotton would be integrated with existing industries.

While cotton is mostly known for the lint produced, it is the seed that Mr Engelke sees as the key to unlocking the crop’s true value in the region primarily known for its extensive cattle stations.

The nutritious seed can be fed to cattle and enable producers to wean calves earlier and bring heifers to breeding weight quicker than grazing alone.

Another positive side-effect of expanding cotton production is the benefit for rotation crops like maize, which has become an important fixture in the Ord Valley.

“Lint is great because it carries the viability of it but the seed is the thing that really gives you some ­regional lift through the ability to plug that protein gap that has ­existed in the cattle industry up here since it commenced,” Mr ­Engelke said.

About 2400ha of cotton was harvested in WA and 8000ha in the NT this year.

Rabobank associate analyst Edward McGeoch said the number of bales produced in WA and the NT was expected to double to almost 150,000 next year. “The early estimate for this upcoming season is that we should see production almost double,” he said.

He said the cotton industry in WA and the NT had significant potential. “A lot of them are sending cotton to be ginned in southern Queensland, which from a freight cost perspective has probably been pretty inhibitive … with the gins under construction, they’re obviously banking on the fact that we’re going to production lift.”