Off-farm skills vital for future of industry

Working alongside his father Denis Kiely, Mr Kiely is predominantly a cotton farmer, with cotton being grown in addition to peanuts, chickpeas and a variety of other crops. 

In the past year Mr Kiely, 35, said he has been challenging himself to improve his leadership skills within the industry. 

He has recently completed the Australian Future Cotton Leaders Program (AFCLP), as well as the GrowAg conference in New South Wales. 

He said both were “incredible opportunities”, and said the Cotton Australia-run AFCLP was particularly important for young cotton growers. 

“I was nominated this year and submitted an application and was chosen, which was quite exciting,” he said. 

“There was 15 of us from the cotton industry that got together and they ran us through communication styles, personality tests and how to deal with different personalities, and it was quite a challenging course.”

Mr Kiely said the networking opportunities presented were particularly important. 

“One of the main things is connecting with people from other areas, learning about how they grow cotton, how they use technology, and understanding things - like I didn’t really realise how bad connectivity is,” he said.

“Here close to Emerald I have internet service, but down in Moree some of the biggest farms in Australia have no internet, and downloading information from machinery back to the office just can’t happen.”

Meanwhile, Mr Kiely was also one of 100 agricultural industry representatives from across Australia to be chosen to attend the Federal Government-funded GrowAg conference.

“It was excellent, there was only three of us from the cotton industry but overall there was subject on every industry, and it was run amazingly,” he said. 

“What I brought back is that there is so many industry people out there that we have to connect with. 

“With GrowAg it was just great understanding where the cotton industry is and how all these other industries are starting to follow each other - I think we all need to work in together more.”