Irrigation benefits — and dangers

Press, 12 April 1978, Page 3

Irrigation benefits — and dangers

Two possible dangers that could follow irrigation development were cited by Professor H. A. Morton, associate professor of history at Otago University, when addressing an irrigation conference at Ashburton yesterday. The two dangers were o v e r-administration and inter-community antagonism, said Professor Morton. But he told the conference that he believed that there was a need for the unremitting development of irrigation in New Zealand. Professor Morton said it could be confidently expected that every irrigation scheme of any size would bring about an increase in the number of public servants. Education, health, welfare and supervision of various sorts, both of production and processing, were growth industries in themselves and administrators in all of these fields became involved in the social and productive changes which irrigation brought about. As a person who was in this field himself, he said that he had begun to be seriously concerned about the balance in numbers and investment between the real producers and those who supplied the services and administration. “Irrigation, because of its heavy investment, its specific problems, and its laudable tendency to increase population density, adds to various other pressures moving us further into a bureaucratic maze,” he said. “This ought to, be watched with care.”. Professor Morton said that irrigation could spur regional growth because it increased production and improved community living standards, but although it

i could spur regional growth it would not do so without the supporting forces of “central administrative policies and expenditure.” Much of the bureaucratic growth would be necessary, but history warned of the danger of over-administration in irrigated lands, he said. While water and land reacted in expected ways everywhere, Professor Morton said that they also worked within a different human context in each country. Irrigation might be alike in China and Iraq, but the attitudes of the people were not alike. Nor were the differences between the Chinese who irrigated and~ the Chinese who did not precisely like the differences between Iraquis who irrigated and those who did not. There were differences between those who irrigated and those who did not — and these differences meant political problems.

Subtle changes in society arose because of irrigation’s effects on the individual farmer’s psychology. Security of mind stemming from irrigation farming bred different men from a situation where they were at risk. Different men created different societies.

The opportunities to improve the environment that accompanied irrigation, , along with growth during drought, tended to separate irrigated lands from non- . irigated lands in appearance i as well as in fact. Areas left out of irrigation schemes could become separate societies as well as separate productive units. The danger of a growth of antagonism following the recognition of differences, : particularly in drought

years, suggested that positive efforts should be directed to preventing such developments. There was at least a possibility of such antagonism in a boundary district of one thriving irrigation scheme in North Otago. Earlier, Mr W. R. Lobb, former superintendent of the

Winchmore Irrigation Research Station, had noted that in equal areas of country there were more people where the country was under irrigation than where it was not. Several recent surveys had also shown that there were gains in population in irrigated areas compared with losses in dry areas.

One interesting fact, however, was that the irrigation fanners’ wives in the Lower Waitaki area had more children than their dryland counterparts. A similar situation had not, however, been shown in Mid-Canterbury where there are both irrigated and dryland areas. Mr Lobb asked what conclusions could be drawn from this? The irrigation farmer had more time on his hands and was less tired at night. The difference between the Lower Waitaki and the MidCanterbury farmer was that the former came into irrigation with the advantages of automated systems and thus had all his nights free, whereas under the old system the Mid-Canterbury farmer struggling with his irrigation sheets and headgate boards in the dead of night in wind and rain had little time to enjoy family [life. “It would seem that irrigation not only increases production, but revitalises the population on whom we depend,” said Mr Lobb.