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Trip to Australia, 2004
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Here
The hot climate is excellent for
cotton and Australia is one of the
major cotton exporters in the
world. In fact the value of export
exceeds that of wool. The large
scale industry is only 30 years
old. Long ago however cotton was
planted on a small scale. The
cotton industry is a hi-tech
industry and the growers are
supported by the industrial
infrastructure to process the
cotton The Australian cotton is
high-quality, for the finest
products and 96% is exported. It is
however controversial, due to the
abundant use of pesticides and
water. In the Australian Cotton
Institute we were informed about
the production cycle. We collected
some seeds, so now we can grow now
the cotton in Hungary from
professional seeds. Cotton
suffers from many pests and
genetically engineered seeds are
part of a solution. By planting
other crops near the cotton, the
pests can be minimised. Indeed, we
saw just along the main roads some
nice examples of that. That looks
good, but we inspected the huge
cotton fields and saw only
monocultures. So the mixed crops
are good for the image but
impractical, as the huge combined
harvesters need big areas to work
efficiently.
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