Top farmer cottons on with green hydrogen, rare earths
Australia’s reigning cotton grower of the year sees a European Union crackdown on the textile industry’s carbon footprint as a money-making opportunity and is moving to build a renewable ammonia and green hydrogen plant on one of his farms with help from the NSW government.
David Statham’s Sundown Pastoral has a business model that relies on a dash of rare earths, its own solar farm and a leap into producing green hydrogen to power farm machinery, and green ammonia for fertiliser.
The NSW government has handed Sundown and privately owned Hiringa Energy nearly $36 million to help build a renewable ammonia and green hydrogen plant on a Sundown property west of Moree, in northern NSW.
David Statham is looking to grow zero-carbon cotton on his Sundown Pastoral farms. Picture: Supplied
Mr Statham expects the grant to cover about half the cost of building the plant on land adjacent to a cotton gin already powered by a solar farm at his Wathagar operations.
He is eyeing a premium for traceable, zero-carbon cotton sold direct to major brands as Europe and other jurisdictions target emissions from the textile industry.
Sundown can already trace its cotton from farm to the shirt on your back by adding a tiny amount of rare earths material – about 400 grams – to every 227 kilogram bale it produces.
The technology is similar to that used in $US100 banknotes. It has helped Sundown bypass traditional cotton markets and sell direct to brands like Country Road.
Mr Statham said producing green hydrogen and ammonia on farm could cut his emissions footprint, which comes from using diesel in machinery and fertiliser on crops, by 90 to 95 per cent.
“The cotton world is changing because of environmental, social, and corporate governance,” he
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