“The dairy recipe has been a really easy one for making irrigation work. But what the downturn (in dairy prices) has done is make people revisit all the various issues. Some are finding sheep and beef and arable works as well.”
Whereas mass conversions to dairy production were the norm in recent years before dairy prices started falling, “now we are seeing a lot of beef and sheep could tweak what they’re doing already,” Curtis said.
“Dairy was easy. Now it’s a bit more challenging because you may now just want to irrigate part of a property rather than the whole farm.”
Curtis’ comments come as environmental campaign group Greenpeace called for an end to government assistance for irrigation schemes in order to “avert a dairy crisis”.
Crown Irrigation Investments, which holds funds to seed commercially-backed new irrigation projects was “designed to expand industrial dairy agriculture”, a “model of agriculture which is failing”, Greenpeace said in a statement.
However, Curtis said reduced demand for irrigation for dairy farm conversions was “not going to stop any of the existing schemes”.
“It’s better, because there will be diversity,” he said.
However, would-be irrigators remained frustrated by the slow pace of progress on freshwater reform, particularly the uncertainty over how long resource consents for irrigation projects would be allowed to run.
“You become frustrated because from a water transfer perspective we think if we could do some things to better initiate that, it might give the public a better return from the use of water,” Curtis said.
The prospect of having to reconsent a water storage scheme with a 75-year commercial life every 20 to 30 years was a barrier to investment.
“If you’re never quite sure whether you’re going to have to go into battle to keep water, it detracts from wanting to invest in using water better.”
