Cotton Australia's Education Manager Jenny Hughes has had a busy start to the year, leading a number of incursions with primary and secondary school students aimed at building the next generation of Australia's cotton workforce.

The first for the year was an interactive information session to the Year 12 students at Alpha Omega College in Auburn focused on biotechnology in cotton. This little-known college was ranked 28th in NSW last year.

Jenny said the dedication of students was reinforced by the high level of engagement they demonstrated, asking thoughtful questions and showing a deep understanding of the content, despite the session being held at 9am on a Saturday.

“Interestingly, after a quick poll in the room, every student had visited one to three other countries, but none of them had ventured past the Blue Mountains in Sydney,” she said.

“This next gen workforce is more interested in careers in the science and agribusiness segments of the cotton industry, rather than being behind the farm gate.”

Jenny also continued her work with Ingleburn High School, delivering her second incursion for the Year 12 Geography cohort studying Global Sustainability. The school chose cotton as a case study to explore how to manage resources for future generations, looking at environmental, social and economic pillars.

Using the resource, Cotton Production as a Global Economic Activity, combined with hands-on activities based on integrated pest management and water use, students developed the knowledge and skills to critically assess the principles of ecologically sustainable development in the cotton industry.

Meanwhile, All Saints Grammar School’s Year 5 students are learning about natural fibres and invited Jenny to speak to them about cotton, particularly its journey from farm to fabric and its impact on people and the environment. The students already had an understanding of natural and synthetic fibres and some general knowledge of sustainability as a concept but not in relation to farming practices.

“This is so often the case that kids in Sydney rarely, if ever, holiday the other side of the mountains and never experience for themselves any broadacre cropping and most do not know a farmer,” Jenny said.

By the end of the incursion, students were asking about crop rotation, beneficial insects and they were amazed to see a pair of ‘soiled undies’ that showed with just eight weeks in the soil, all the cotton in the underpants had biodegraded while the synthetic fibres were still intact.

Most recently, Jenny and Cotton Australia’s Policy Officer Jennifer Brown visited Windy Station in the Liverpool Plains, joining farm manager David Lee as he led a group of agriculture students from Carinya Christian School through the ins and outs of Windy Station’s farm operation. The students were producing a Farm Study and were keen to hear about Windy Station’s vision for financial, environment and social sustainability, their management/team structure, calendar of operations, technology used on farm and more.

“This was a fantastic opportunity to see how the students engaged as they heard about modern farming and what agriculture in Australia really looks like today,” Jenny said.

“Chatting to the students, they really valued the immersive hands-on mode of learning and they were asking some very good questions to clarify their understandings.”