The UNE/CRDC cotton course update and future plans

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By Oliver Knox 1 , Rhiannon Smith 1 and Brendan Griffiths 1

For the 2018–19 delivery of the Cotton Production Course units, UNE mixed up the unit coordination a little so that the load and love could be spread more evenly between Oliver Knox, Rhiannon Smith and Brendan Griffiths. Numbers attending the units also remained good with 52 students in Cotton Production, 18 in Cotton Protection,

Above: Students about to undertake a gin tour, being made aware of the risks and putting on the required PPE, while (below) a smile on the water says a lot about how a benefit assessment, a PFD and a bit of skiing can help alleviate the blues of another day hearing about the impacts of drought. seven in Cotton in the Environment and six in Cotton Systems with the smaller classes due to timetable restrictions that we hope to have remedied for next year.

The year also presented challenges, none more so than the drought. Touring farms, facilities and support industries and hearing about the impact of the drought was as difficult for the students as it is for those of us working and dealing with it every day.

To try and lift spirits during one of the intensive schools, Oliver and Brendan had an idea. We reckon that you have all heard of risk assessments, but have you heard of benefit assessments? Oliver was first introduced to these years ago when he used to take students white water rafting and out on horse drawn carriages.

The university he worked for at the time did not insure students for non-motorised vehicular transport, but conducting a benefit assessment, which highlighted the gains that could only be made from the proposed methods of transport, provided something to balance the risk against and allowed the students to make an informed decision about participation.

So in addition to our risk assessment, we did a benefit assessment during the residential school and offered the students a chance to water-ski. Needless to say several said yes and spirits were lifted, even if only for one evening.

CRDC and UNE remain supportive of the cotton course, but the drought is having an impact.

This does mean that Brendan, Rhiannon and Oliver are having to rethink some of our normal delivery options, while also remaining true to what we see as the ethos behind the units. This may mean some changes in the year ahead, but we hope to keep working with all the industry people who help deliver the course and make the units what they are.

These changes also happen to be coinciding with the agricultural course reviews at UNE, which may also bring some change, but more importantly we are still going ahead with a review of the cotton units and the cotton course. In this regard, we will be asking for assistance from those of you who have

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undertaken the units. We’re proposing to survey past participants of the units to identify what aspects of them make them special as well as trying to identify how we need to mould them to deliver a course that will continue to deliver students who meet the needs of the industry into the future.

The survey is planned to be completed before the end of the year, so please keep an eye out on social media, the Cotton Hub at UNE blog and in your emails for notification about the

Cotton farms don’t just produce cotton and we thought it would be safe to take a bunch of students to a field of hemp, just to talk about the different fibre systems. On second thoughts…

Keeping the units relevant is often about showing the students some of the latest tools and software that can assist our production systems.

survey. We need your help to make informed decisions about the courses’ future, so please take the time this will require to answer the questions and return your responses.

Finally, and as always, we remain grateful to all the participants in the units, both past and present, CRDC for its continuing support and to all the guest lecturers, many of whom give their time for free, for making these units part of the best Cotton Production Course in Australia. Thank you.

1 School of Environmental and Rural Sciences, University of New England.

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