Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Barnaby Joyce has announced $1.78 million for a feasibility study into the Tasmania Future Irrigation Project.
The project will help the state deliver on the Tasmanian Government’s Cultivating Prosperity – A vision for Agriculture.
Tasmanian Irrigation has conducted a study of scheme structure across Tasmania to explore potential inter-connectivity, enhancement and modernisation of existing irrigation schemes.
The project also explored development of potential new schemes that may enhance economic development by the movement of water to its highest economic use.
The Tasmania Future Irrigation Project builds on Tasmanian Irrigation’s (TI) successful delivery of Tranche 1 (10 schemes 2010 – 2015) in its entirety and its ongoing commitment to deliver Tranche 2 (5 schemes 2016 – 2018).
After extensive investigation and consultation Tasmanian Irrigation has identified eight concepts which will enhance the productive capacity of Tasmania and which it believes warrant further investigation.
Of the remaining eight concepts:
- Two will provide interconnectivity to and between existing schemes, allowing water to be moved to areas of higher productive utilisation
- One will enhance an existing schemes’ capacity by integrating existing infrastructure
- Five are new schemes where provision of water would change the land use and productive capacity of existing farming areas
The Federal funding will be used by Tasmanian Irrigation to further investigate the eight concepts and to determine which concepts warrant preparation of full business cases to make them investment ready propositions.