IRRIGATION ANSWER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32553, 12 March 1971, Page 14

IRRIGATION ANSWER

A fraction of the sloom, which had been mentioned as the cost of the cost adjustment scheme proposed by Federated Farmers to ensure the viability of fanning, if put into irrigation would result in a great deal more productivity which would overcome a lot of the problems that fanners were now facing, Mr R. A. Crowder, lecturer in vegetable production at Lincoln College, said when he took part in a symposium on developments in horticultural crops at a meeting of the Canterbury section of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Science this week. Mr Crowder said that he believed that in four or five years’ time the farmer who did not have irrigation might not get the chance to grow process crops. Most of the fluctuations in pea yields in Canterbury appeared to be due to lack of water, he said. In reference to process pea growers wanting a higher price for their crop and threatening to refuse to sign contracts to grow the crop if they did not receive this, Mr Crowder noted that higher prices could mean that a product would be less likely to enter a competitive export market and a preferable course would be to adopt advanced technologies and increase yields and returns.