Irrigation adds-up — Jones

Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says irrigation is essential to the growth of the regions.

“It is especially so in the case of climate change and asking rural NZ to do the heavy lifting in regard to changing our carbon emission.”

When the $1 billion a year Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) was launched in Gisborne last month, Jones said the Government would no longer support ‘uber mega’ irrigation schemes.

However, in an interview with the Rural Exchange (REX) radio show, Jones indicated that irrigation schemes were still an important part of his plans for the fund.

 “We identified that irrigation is essential to the growth of a lot of our regions,” Jones says.

He added that while dropping large irrigation schemes was no longer on the Government’s agenda, “there remains some wiggle room within the fund to pursue better water management and water storage”.

Jones concedes that the confidence and supply agreement the Greens have with Labour means a cessation of government backing for such large irrigation schemes.

“The thing we are no longer able to acquiesce to is these things called ‘uber’ schemes,” he told the REX show. “However, in the PGF there remains some wriggle room in the criteria to pursue better water management and storage.”

Jones gave as an example the $543,000 allocated in the PGF for the next stage of the Makauri Managed Aquifer Recharge trial in Gisborne. The project is aimed at injecting water from the Waipaoa River into the aquifer for use on 3000ha of irrigated horticultural farm land.

Jones claims this will give rural New Zealand confidence that he’s
got their backs.

“My party, myself, my leader and the broader Government do accept that you can’t have ongoing productivity out of rural New Zealand in the absence of water,” he said. “That’s just as simple as learning arithmetic as a six-year-old.”

Meanwhile, in what could be seen as a slight at some of his coalition partners’ anti-irrigation rhetoric, Jones caustically dismissed these criticisms.

“For areas such as the Hawkes Bay and Northland without better water storage and management – I am beggared if I can see what we can do with that land.”