Print This Page2008 Australian Cotton Industry Awards
Monsanto Cotton Grower of the Year Award
L to R: Monsanto's Bethwyn Todd, 2008 Monsanto Grower of the Year Andrew Watson, Cotton Australia Chair Joanne Grainger and ACGRA Chair Ben Stephens
Andrew Watson, “Brigadoon”, Boaggabri, NSW
The 2008 Australian Cotton Industry Awards were held on the Gold Coast for the third time as part of the 14th Australian Cotton Conference.
Boggabri cotton grower Andrew Watson received top honours at the 2008 Cotton Industry Awards. In front of more than 600 cotton industry peers who gathered at the awards dinner on the Gold Coast, Andrew Watson was named 2008 Monsanto Cotton Grower of the Year.
Andrew is the second generation running his family’s farming enterprise across several properties near Boggabri. His enterprise is a irrigated and dryland cotton and grain farming system combined with irrigated pasture based grazing adjacent to the Namoi River. The focus is on profitable farming within the constraints of responsible environmental management.
Andrew has committed several areas of his farm as permanent heritage trust sites. Andrew is well known for his excellent farm management practices and especially for the extensive bush regeneration he has undertaken on his properties. He has fenced off river banks from stock, planted native trees and shrubs to create vegetation believes that the cotton industry must adopt the mentality of farming in harmony with nature, and view it as a beneficial extension to established farming practices. Andrew has high hopes for the future of the Australian cotton industry and would like to see it continue to gain wide acceptance as one of the best managed agricultural industries in the world.
