CRACKING CROP: Paul Brimblecombe, CEO of Cubbie Ag, with the latest record crop of cotton to be picked on Cubbie Station after three years of good rains. Source: The Courier-Mail
A COTTON boom is in full swing at Dirranbandi as the massive Cubbie Station unwinds 20 days of frantic harvesting worth millions of dollars.
And just like the mining boom it is China that is at the buying end of big upturn in cotton production, boosted by good summer rains.
The Queensland wet season has been so good that water only stopped flowing into Cubbie this week.
Its controversial water storage of 530 billion litres, which is roughly the size of Sydney Harbour, is at capacity and will be enough to get it through its next season with some left over for 2015.
The logistics at Cubbie are enormous, but so is the benefit.
From the 21,000ha it will export this year 220,000 bales of cotton lint at a price of $245 a bale. It works out as a $55 million payday plus what it earns for seed sales.
The prosperity comes on the back of 10 years of drought that sent Cubbie's owners broke and into administration for three years.
The property is now owned by a joint venture between Melbourne's Lempriere family and China's Ruyi which has unshackled the property from debt and allowed it to operate without constraint.
In Dirranbandi, the harvest spells boom time for the 700 residents - about 100 people work on Cubbie.
It fuels an entire economy with pilots in crop dusters, harvesters, agronomists, truck drivers, irrigators and support staff.
Cubbie Ag chief executive Paul Brimblecombe, 48, said China was not slowing down in buying high-quality cotton.
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