Workers lost from wider community

Press, 25 September 1987, Page 14

Workers lost from wider community

George Beaven has 310 ha under irrigation from the Waiau Scheme and is worried about the effect the huge jump in water charges will have on the Amuri district.

To get full benefit from the scheme in the form of higher stock numbers, farmers should be employing more staff, but they could not afford to said Mr Beaven. The lack of employment was affecting the whole district and there were now about 10 empty houses in Culverden.

Rising farm costs had forced many farmers to stop employing wage workers and these people were being lost from the

rural community. Once cut off it would be hard to convince these people to return to rural areas.

As an example of the lost opportunities, Mr Beaven said his farm needed three men to be worked to its full capacity, but at present it was being farmed as a two man unit.

Production on the Beaven farm has trebled since irrigation water arrived in 1980. Mr Beaven said he never hesitated in making a decision to undertake irrigation development — in fact he would have sold the farm and moved to another district if irrigation had not

proceeded. Without irrigation, the farm was only a one-man dryland unit and was actually for sale before the decision was made to proceed with. the Waiau scheme.

Mr Beaven says he is reasonably well established financially and could probably handle the increased water charges which will rise from $5700 a year to almost $24,000.

He accepts that farmers would have to pay a “reasonable” amount in water charges, but feels that even $l5 to $lB a hectare would be too much for some farmers.