Crop choices: motivational and decision-making factors that attract and retain cotton-grower employers within the Australian cotton industry

Crop choices: motivational and decision-making factors
that attract and retain cotton-grower employers
within the Australian cotton industry

Primary production is integral to feeding and clothing the world, and cotton is both a food and a fibre. The cotton industry’s producer employers are critical to the longevity of the Australian cotton industry. Understanding their motivation and the influencers of their decision-making processes in crop choice is important. While exploring decision-making of employers is not new, this study seeks to establish what are the sources of motivation to grow cotton and what factors influence the decision-making processes in the context of cotton grower employer (CGE) crop choice.

The work is framed as exploratory and theory building, as little has been published in the academic literature about individual employer perspectives in agriculture, such as CGEs and how they are influenced from a psychological and behavioural economic perspective. There is a deficit specifically regarding individual employer experiences from this perspective in Australian agriculture broadly and in cotton growing more specifically.

Overall, this multi-disciplinary study has identified influencers that impact on the decision-making processes of CGEs. This research is important because it informs cotton industry stakeholders such as (a) growers and their supportive others, (b) industry service providers such as merchants, ginners, brokers and insurers, and (c) government policy-makers regarding the influences of CGE decision-making processes and crop choice.