In Australia’s New South Wales, Southern Cotton’s inning business is a thriving $26 million-a-year business, a contrast from four years ago, when it was hardly anything, but had tremendous potential. The business is also the latest winner of the Regional Award at the 2015 Telstra Australian Business Awards. It won the award for its innovative use of technology and business sense. Fed up with the 800 km round trip to gin their cotton, the business is the brainchild of six grower friends who built their own facility. Directors Tim and Roger Commins, Gerard and John Toscan, Scott Hogan and Larry Walsh established Southern Cotton in 2011.

Nearly 100 local growers use Southern Cotton’s Whitton-based gin today considered a main driver of the region’s rebirth as a cotton-processing centre, serving more than 35,000ha of cotton crops. The facility has a state-of-the-art Radio Frequency Identification tracking system, which gives growers data from the paddock to the finished bale via smartphone or tablet—earning the business Telstra’s appreciation.

Southern Cotton is the only gins in the world to use the technology that captures, stores, and retrieves data on each cotton module to help growers learn more about their crop and help them in farm management decisions.

Besides, cotton-ginning, Southern Cotton, with 50,000 tonnes of cottonseed byproduct processed for livestock feed and cotton seed oil has developed new market opportunities. LPG gas is replaced by stalks, leaves and lint leftover, which are used after processing local cotton, to both power the gin. This produces a high-carbon by¬product that farmers can use to restore soil fertility and carbon content.