Cotton Australia has announced the finalists for both the 2025 Bayer Cotton Grower of the Year award and the AgriRisk High Achiever of the year award with the results to be announced at the Cotton Collective in Toowoomba in August.
There were five finalists from as far north as Dalby on Queensland’s Darling Downs and as far south as Spring Ridge on the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales, each grower highlighting excellence in farming practice and outstanding recent results in cotton production.
This year, each of the five finalists, nominated by their Cotton Grower Associations and fellow growers, will be considered for the Bayer Grower of the Year Award and the AgriRisk High Achiever of the Year, with one recipient to be announced in each category.
This year the finalists are:
• Tyson Armitage – Wamara Farming Trust, Cecil Plains QLD
• Brownhill Family – Merrilong Agricultural Company, Spring Ridge NSW
• Tom and Julie Eather – Bellevue Pastoral Company, Narrabri, NSW
• Thomas Popp – ‘Springfield’, RMI Ltd, Kurumbal Qld
• Matt Richards, RDS Farming, Nobby, QLD
Cotton Australia’s CEO Adam Kay said the nominees for this year’s top cotton industry awards are all highly deserving, with some encountering a challenging year particularly with the onset of rain at the start of picking.
“The awards are the Australian cotton industry’s top grower honours for the year, and they recognise a range of attributes including innovation, sustainability, water efficiencies, nutrition and soil health, and commitment to their own communities,” Mr Kay said.
“This year the nominees represent a range of cotton growers with one producing only his third cotton crop while another family has been growing cotton for more than 30 years and are now 5th generation farmers.
“I am also pleased to say that all the nominees this year are family farms ranging in size from two full time employees to more than 60 across several farms, displaying the great diversity that Australian cotton farms are renowned for.”
The growers were nominated after winning regional awards or after recognition from other growers, impressed by their farming strategies and crop outcomes.
The farms included in this year’s nominations include some with predominantly rain fed crops while others are fully irrigated, using a variety of irrigation methods.
As part of the judging effort, Cotton Australia supported last year’s Bayer Grower of the Year Scott Balsillie and AgriRisk High Achiever Steve McVeigh in visiting each of the nominee’s farm’s, accompanied by sponsor representatives, to witness first-hand their innovative and forward-thinking farming practices.
“Being named as the recipient of the Bayer Grower of the Year award for 2024 was the highlight of my agricultural career, and being able to visit the finalists on their farms in 2025 has been another highlight. They are all very dedicated and talented and each one deserves recognition for what they are achieving,” Mr Balsillie said.
