Cotton
How cotton is produced:
1. The weeds are removed and nutrients, seeds and water are added in the soil.
2. Cotton is removed by planting machines.
3. The cotton plants are watered only when necessary throughout the season.
4. There are many different methods (called Integrated Pest Management) used to control pests that destroy cotton while it is growing.
5. Cotton is then picked with mechanical machines that take out the cotton from the bush.
6. Next, it is loaded onto a truck and sent to the gin (a machine used for removing cotton from its seeds ) for processing.
7. Machines remove the cotton lint from the cotton seed.Then the cotton is put into bales.
8. After that, cotton then arrives at a spinning mill and it is combed and twisted into yarn and dyed into any colour!
9. Finally the cotton yarn is knitted into fabric and sewn into cotton products such as clothes,tents etc.
FACTS ABOUT COTTON
- There are 796 cotton farms in Australia, 64% in NSW and 36% in Queensland.
- In an average year, Australia’s cotton growers produce enough cotton to clothe 500 million people.
- Australian farmers are environmental stewards,owning,managing and caring for 61 percent of Australia's land mass.
- Most of Australia's cotton is shipped and sold overseas.
- The average price offered to a bale of cotton is $474.
