Irrigation investigation

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32720, 24 September 1971, Page 14

Irrigation investigation

An investigation of irrigation based on water resources of the Rakaia and Waimakariri rivers is to be undertaken. This was confirmed this week by Mr E. J. Stonyer, who is director of the economics division of the Department of Agriculture. He said it would be a joint exercise between the department and Lincoln College. The department intended to shift a man from the North Island to. work with the college in what would be a fairly large exercise. An objective of the investigation would be to try to work out the likely response to irrigation, what sort of progress might be expected and how best use could be made of the water resources. > The study would start in the area of the Northern Central Plains Irrigation Committee, which had been collecting information, but it would also extend to other

areas that might be served from these rivers.. Mr Stonyer said he did not think that it was possible to make recommendations about individual schemes until "the whole water resource story and irrigation pattern has been sorted out.”

The Canterbury section of the New Zealand Institute Of Agricultural Science this week set up a subcommittee to examine the report of the committee of the Water Allocation Council, which recently carried out an investigation of existing irrigation policies. The chairman of the section, Mr S. D. Walker, said that while it was fairly widely held that the conclusions of the committee were not far away from 'the'thinking of most people, some of the statements contained in the report were quite different from expert evidence and general farm management and fanner opinion.