But at an average cost of close to $10,000/ha to get them off the drawing board, about $2.5 billion needs to be found.
Irrigation New Zealand chief executive Andrew Curtis said that at first glance that might seem a lot of money but he urged people to think again.
“It doesn’t take many dry summers like this one before the loss in production adds up to well over that cost,” Curtis said.
Estimates of the total cost to the country from the 2013 North Island drought alone were close to $2b.
Both ratepayers and taxpayers stood to gain for several generations and should be helping foot the bill to build the schemes rather than leaving the financial burden solely to one generation of primary producers, he said.
Curtis was losing patience with individuals within some non-government organisations who were being “disingenuous” when it came to opposing, holding up and creating additional expense for potential irrigation developments.
The mindset among scheme proponents meant environmental benefits were sought at the outset of the project planning stage rather than simply looking for mitigations.
“But we’re still ending up in these litigious situations that mean we’re frankly wasting money doing battle when that money could be much better spent on environmental enhancements – augmenting stream and aquifer flows, moving water to dilute nutrient issues.”
Getting water flowing across the raft of projects was now a matter of some urgency, he said.
