Irrigation leads to $62m investment

Farmers have invested more than $62 million in developing their farms over the past five years to take advantage of irrigation from the North Otago Irrigation Company scheme covering 10,000ha on the North Otago Downlands and in the Waiareka Valley.

That expenditure is in addition to the $67 million it cost to build the scheme to deliver water from the Waitaki River to farms.

The biggest expenditure has been to convert farms to dairying, which now makes up more than half of the 10,000ha covered by the scheme.

These details are revealed in a report commissioned by the Waitaki Development Board from consultants AgriBusiness Group to investigate the economic benefits from the scheme, now in its fifth season.

The scheme uses a canal from the Lower Waitaki Irrigation Company's intake at Bortons to take water to a pond and pumphouse next to State Highway 83 which through pipes, canals and storage ponds delivers water to the farms.

On Thursday, the Otago Daily Times reported the new scheme had boosted farm income by $44 million a year and created 76 farm jobs as a result of irrigation.

That has resulted in farmers spending almost $30 million more a year, most of it in the local community.

Board chairman Peter Robinson described the scheme as "the single most significant economic development" project in North Otago in recent years.

The full report indicates farmers who are taking water from the scheme have so far invested $62.24 million in their properties.

Irrigation has resulted in a significant shift to dairying from the more traditional dryland farming, which was prone to droughts.

North Otago Irrigation Company chief executive Robyn Wells said the report showed the benefit of this irrigation scheme and others to the North Otago economy now and for the future. For example, in times of drought, farms had been able to continue producing where once they had not. The whole community benefited.

Along with that, farms on the North Otago scheme had to have individual farm environment plans covering a wide range of management issues, including efficient application of water, fertiliser application and effluent management.

The company had an employee who spent three days a week monitoring those plans to ensure they complied, a requirement of the resource consents the company held, she said.

"Those plans allowed farmers to grow their business while preserving the environment through the application of standards and practices that will contribute to the environment on a long-term basis," she said.

Before the scheme, 2075ha of the 10,000ha was in dairying. Now, 5820ha is dairying, mostly at the expense of sheep farming.