24 March 2025
After a period of change and renewal, the Australian cotton industry’s extension program, CottonInfo, has welcomed five new Regional Extension Officers (REOs) to the team.
The new team members Rochelle Field (Macquarie), Bob Ford and Blake Palmer (Namoi), Greg Bramley (Gwydir) and Tami Buranda (Central Queensland) join CottonInfo’s existing REOs Annabel Twine (Darling Downs), Andrew McKay (Border Rivers, St George, Dirranbandi) and Kieran O’Keeffe (Southern NSW), bolstering CottonInfo to a full complement of REOs, ensuring industry-good extension across seven growing valleys.
The CottonInfo program was launched in 2012 and is a partnership of the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC), Cotton Australia and Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD). CRDC leads the program and manages the team, Cotton Australia supports the program through myBMP, and CSD is a key investor.
The full CottonInfo REO team met in Narrabri last week for training and induction sessions.
New CottonInfo Regional Extension Officers
Macquarie: Rochelle Field
Rochelle is an agronomist who joins CottonInfo after honing her technical skills for the past nearly 5 years with Elders in Dubbo. Naming cotton as her ‘crop of choice’, Rochelle is looking forward to supporting Macquarie growers in her new CottonInfo extension capacity. Rochelle will be based near Narromine and will begin April 7.
Namoi: Bob Ford & Blake Palmer
Bob is a well-known cotton industry figure and joins CottonInfo from a Regional Manager role with Cotton Australia. Bob will service the Namoi as an REO four days a week and devote one day a week to the myBMP program to further support the links between best practice and extension. Bob will be based in Narrabri and start March 24.
Blake has a solid knowledge of the Namoi cotton landscape and will support CottonInfo as an REO and the CottonInfo Soil Health Technical Lead while also completing his soil health PhD. He joins from NSW DPI’s soils team, where he has been working on CRDC-supported research. Blake will be based in Narrabri and start March 24.
Gwydir: Greg Bramley
Greg brings significant experience in helping farmers navigate new practices and technologies to the CottonInfo team. With a background in rural business and agronomy, a Masters in Cotton Production and a love of cotton, Greg joins the team most recently from Padman Stops. Greg will be based in Moree and start March 24.
Central Queensland: Tami Buranda
Tami is a research agronomist from Zimbabwe who has a strong background in field research, agronomy and extension. She is passionate about cotton with a particular focus on pests, nutrition and biosecurity, and brings a unique perspective to Australian cotton production. Tami will be based in Emerald and will begin her role on April 28.
CottonInfo Program Manager Dr Janelle Montgomery said she is excited to lead the full-strength team into a new era for the CottonInfo program.
“It’s been a time of great change for some of the operational aspects of CottonInfo, but the two key goals of the program – to help grow our industry’s profitability through extending research to meet grower’s challenges, and to help grow our industry’s sustainability and responsiveness to threats and risks – have not changed,” she said.
“To achieve these goals, we will continue to create a two-way flow of information between our researchers, growers and agronomists, and our team of REOs are the critical conduit in that.”
CRDC Executive Director Allan Williams said the further tightening of the research and extension across CRDC and CottonInfo would serve growers and the broader industry well.
“Bringing the CottonInfo REOs into CRDC brings the CottonInfo team closer to the delivery of our world-leading research, which in turns brings growers closer too,” he said.
Cotton Australia’s CEO Adam Kay said it was an exciting move to have REOs closer to the research.
“Growers have always appreciated the knowledge and advice of the CottonInfo and the industry’s need for ongoing innovation and extension, and our myBMP team are looking forward to continuing being part of that,” he said.
CSD CEO Dr Ian Taylor said CSD is proud of its ongoing support of the CottonInfo program.
“We look forward to, with our partners and our own Extension and Development Team, tackling grower problems with high-quality on-ground research,” he said.
ENDS