A whole farm comparison of irrigated cotton rotations in the Lower Namoi Valley, NSW

A whole farm budget for a representative farm in the Lower Namoi Valley in northern NSWwas used to analyse the financial implications of a comparative rotational experiment of fourcotton-based rotations conducted in recent years at the Australian Cotton Research Institute,near Narrabri. The model was used to compare the rotations, which highlighted theimportance of crop selection for the financial performance of the business. Apart fromproviding a broad brush picture of financial performance, the model also had a stochasticcomponent which was used to analyse the effect of variable commodity prices on the wholefarm profitability of each rotation.Mean results indicated a positive return for all rotations within the representative farmbudgets for the Lower Namoi Valley, indicating that given restricted irrigation wateravailability and average commodity prices, each rotation would ensure that the businessreturned a profit. The rotations varied in resilience to commodity price variability from 74%to 99.5% probability to return a positive farm operating surplus.