The Federal Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Barnaby Joyce has announced $1.78 million for a feasibility study into the Tasmanian Future Irrigation Project.
The funding will allow the state to deliver on the Tasmanian Government’s Cultivating Prosperity plan.
Irrigation, coupled with Tasmania’s unique climate and agricultural skills base, underpin the Tasmanian economy.
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.
Tasmanian Irrigation has identified eight areas that will enhance the productive capacity of Tasmania. These include:
- Two areas that will provide interconnectivity to and between existing schemes, allowing water to be moved to areas of higher productive use
- One area that will enhance an existing schemes’ capacity by integrating existing infrastructure
- Five that 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 areas and to determine which areas warrant preparation of full business cases to make them investment ready propositions.
