The bales from Queensland were loaded onto the SS Westmorland, bound for England in July 1921.Australia's cotton industry is getting ready to once again use break bulk shipping for exportsAustralia's first ginned cotton was exported this way in 1921
"It's interesting to be looking at those old historic photos from 1921 of the first [cotton] shipments and thinking, 'Wow, there's a bit of back to the future in this'," Mr Kay said. "So the company doing this [shipment to Turkey] is using a hospital-grade ship, which has been used in the past for wood pulp.
"It's a ship with a gantry-type crane system on it that can lift these cotton bales off the dock and into the hold in an efficient way and a way that doesn't damage the cotton."Cotton being offloaded at a new gin in Brisbane in 1921.A couple of years ago, China was buying about 70 per cent of Australia's cotton crop.or risk their quotas being slashed.
Mr Kay said the industry had been working hard to find new markets and expand existing markets such as Turkey."I think they were finding it difficult to get ships and containers up to the Mediterranean and so that's why this [break bulk] option is now being explored."Like most commodities, the price of cotton has eased in recent weeks and is currently valued at around $770 a bale.
Yep, headline makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.. Even for the ABC.😐
Roll on Roll off ships would work too. Drive into the ship direct from the cotton storage and fork into position
Just make more containers. Derp. We have yards full of effort overseas here. The mafia shipping lines don't want to pay to export them back to China.