Irrigation modernisation for high value, efficient agriculture
A key objective of any irrigation modernisation program is increase the efficiency of irrigation and produce more using less water.
The Food Bowl Modernisation Project, forerunner to NVIRP, had a vision for a strong and vibrant GMID community, creating ‘opportunity for productive and growing businesses that add value to water, by producing twice as much from half the amount of water’. (83) This kind of ‘factor four’ productivity gain is essential to ensure the ongoing viability of irrigation in northern Victoria under climate change scenarios.
As the NVIRP project gathers speed, its key concern is to accumulate water savings as quickly and cost effectively as possible to meet tight timelines imposed by the urgent need to supply water savings to Melbourne through the Sugarloaf pipeline. The adding value to water objective of the Steering Committee has been reduced to ‘ Improve on farm water use efficiency and farm viability to support regional economic development opportunities and increase irrigation related productivity’ and ‘Develop an irrigation water supply environment that will retain water entitlements and attract new customers, more irrigation water and “green field” development to the region’. (84)
Recent evaluation of early modernisation projects in the Shepparton and Central Goulburn districts shows that these modernisation programs are capable of producing the projected reductions in outfalls and channel seepage, and significantly increasing the efficiency of irrigation water delivery. (85) NVIRP is providing a significant boost to employment in the region, and is opening up new opportunities for innovation in irrigation design. To maximize the benefit of these efficiency gains, it is essential that irrigators who benefit from the modernised system produce greater value per unit of water delivered, the ‘factor four’ increase envisioned by the Steering Committee.
However a sustainable future for the irrigation industry requires much more than an efficient delivery system. While a full discussion is beyond the scope of this paper, Prof Wayne Myer of Adelaide University and the CRC for Irrigation Futures lays out some of the challenges in a recent paper:
‘The Future of irrigated horticulture. The finite resources we have available are increasingly apparent as world population grows and the footprint we each exert on the resource base becomes clearer. The rapidly growing realization that water can be limiting and that our cheap energy base is changing means we must rethink how we continue to develop irrigated horticulture. We should expect improvements in genetics and agronomy. But this is not going to be enough.
There is a real risk in planning and operating irrigated agriculture in isolation, either in isolation of the markets, global trends or, particularly, in isolation of the regional context in which it occurs.
The influence of increasing energy costs for both production and transport should trigger us to think more about localized production. This can link with more localized use and reuse of recycled water. A greater interdependency of primary production, processing and use of waste products can bring efficiencies of energy and resource use. The problem of excessive water and nutrient additions that characterize current practices may need to be addressed with different planting configurations, even with different species. We should be increasingly cautious about further development of vast monocultures. The idea of mosaics, small islands of concentrated production surrounded by natural ecosystems should be explored. Such systems can increase our regional resilience through diversity, for if there is one thing we should have learned from natural systems it is that diversity enables adaptation. In an increasingly changeable world, the capacity to adapt is ever more important.
We should be thinking more of a brave new world – suburbs and regional centres will need to be become more self-contained with irrigated horticulture being an integral part of this more integrated regional water, energy, waste, production and community model’. (86)
References
(83) Food Bowl Modernisation Project Steering Committee Report. Nov 2007
(84) NVIRP Project Objectives http://www.nvirp.com.au/about/project_objectives.aspx. Accessed 23/8/09
(85) Goulburn-Murray Water. 2008/09 Modernisation Case Studies. http://www.g-mwater.com.au/modernisationcasestudies Accessed 23/8/09
(86) Meyer, WS (2008) The Future of Irrigated Production Horticulture – World and Australian Perspective. Proc. Vth IS on Irrigation of Hort Crops, Acta Hort 792, 449-58.
