Remember when we used to spin our cotton?

In the wake of hiccups in trade between China and Australia and COVID restricting trade, Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay said he couldn't see why Australia might not increase its value-adding to cotton products post ginning.

He said the cotton industry was not afraid to set bold targets. It had reached its target of reducing pesticide use by over 90 per cent and could also not see why it couldn't achieve high sustainability goals in the near future.

He also indicated the industry should look at more processing, given that cotton product manufacturing was now highly automated, taking the labour cost issue away.

"We could certainly look at more processing in Australia. Energy costs are the major cost burden by far. If we can look at getting those energy costs down then we will definitely allow more processing to come back onshore."

Speaking at a NSW FarmWriters webinar, Mr Kay said Australia produced some of the best and highest yielding cotton in the world and it was in high demand.

He said there were companies doing due diligence on setting up spinning operations, but they continued to face the dilemma of paying at least half or as third as much more in Australia for electricity as that in many overseas places.

Mr Kay said he saw no reason why Australia couldn't resume a spinning industry, as it had one not that long ago (spinning operations at Wentworthville in Sydney and Rocklea in Brisbane).

With renewable energy helping to reduce prices, Australia was in a prime position to return to that spinning part of the industry.

The Australian cotton crop this next season was estimated to hit about 2.1million bales after the disastrous season ending earlier this year that saw just 600,000 bales produced.

Mr Kay said he would defiintely see more area planted to cotton if the La Nina event delivered more rain in the coming two months. Water storage levels were still precarious in northern NSW, but central and southern dam levels were steadily rising to significant levels.

"Australia sells every bale it produces every year."