Irrigated Cropping Forum projects

Back to ICF projects index page

Lifting Irrigated Cropping Profitability and Water Use Efficiency (NSW)

Commencement date: 01/07/2005

Completion date: 30/06/2008

Project Summary:

This project will lead to more understanding and more widespread adoption of profitable, water use efficient irrigation and cropping systems by irrigators from Northern Victoria through to the Lachlan Valley in NSW. This is the NSW component of the project and is strongly related to the Victorian proposal with the same name.

These outcomes will be achieved by

1. review, extension and demonstration of current knowledge of water use efficient irrigation, crop production and rotations for higher value production from irrigation.

2. the economic analysis of the returns and costs of production at an individual farm level

3. surveying farmers to gain an understanding of the barriers to adoption of higher value rotations.

Project background and rationale:

State and Federal governments have been pushing for improved water use efficiency for some time but have provided only limited support to assist farmers with this challenge. Notwithstanding this however, research has been conducted in the past about higher value cropping sequences and rotations but this information has not resulted in any major change in on farm practices.

Of late water availability has driven farmer thinking to look at ways to maximise whole farm income in years with reduced water availability. Recent work by NSW DPI shows that at allocation levels below 50%, most irrigation farmers in the Murrumbidgee valley cannot make a positive cash flow using the traditional farming systems. Anecdotal reports from the Lachlan Valley indicated that farmers in that region with little or no water available for irrigation over the last few years have reverted to dryland farming system using winter cereals and lucerne and abandoned higher value irrigated crops due to the higher costs and risks associated with these.

The Victoria Murray / Goulburn valley is experiencing significant shifts in water distribution due to the trading market, the preferences of the aging farmers and the choice to trade water while retaining the land. Some farms are now "stranded", ie cannot be economically supplied with irrigation water. In these areas there is a need to develop higher value systems based on the traditional farming these areas are capable of. Therefore, there is a need to dramatically lift the level and value of production from the traditional irrigation farms with the four valleys covered by the ICF.

In line with this is a potential need to better understand on farm water delivery systems and ways to maximise the returns and water use efficiency from the systems and layouts employed by farmers. Farmers have been changing their layouts and employing numerous variations on traditional layouts that attempt to provide greater flexibility on crop production and sequences. There is a need to fully understand the ramifications of newer layout styles and the management requirements under each type of system be they pressure or gravity delivery.

Recent work by the CSIRO and NSW DPI trialling different irrigation delivery systems at Coleambally have shown that higher levels of delivery technology do not necessarily improve water use efficiency or productivity. It is important that we fully understand the capacity of each system and how to best manage each of them without necessarily encouraging farmers to increase their capital investments.

Anecdotal information from farmers is that one barrier to adoption of water delivery systems that purport to increase water use efficiency is capital cost. There is little point attempting to encourage farmers to change irrigation practices if they ultimately can't produce an economic return from the investment. There has also historically been a large emphasis in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys on rotations where rice is followed by wheat and pasture. More recently farmers have shown interest in other crops, such as summer crops which use less water, and oilseeds and pulses which require targeted irrigation inputs.

Farmers have seen the benefits of the emphasis given to wheat and rice and that there are now widely known regimes for producing high yielding crops and that there is a need to understand the regimes required for higher yields in the other crops of interest. For example there is a desire to know how to produce 8 t / ha malting barley or 4 t / ha soybeans. The knowledge required to consistently achieve such yields is available but not broadly known by farmers. Therefore there is a need to provide additional extension material so that farmers and their advisers can confidently attempt to produce higher value production from their current and changing systems.

Higher yields from the same level of inputs with better management improve the efficiency of the inputs, particularly water. It has also been identified that the crop check system is a valuable tool in identifying and recording best farmer practices and the key management areas for improved crop production. While cropcheck can arguably be credited with significantly lifting the yields of rice crops, along with improved varieties, it has not had the same level of uptake and improvement in other crops. It is thought that this is because there is only limited participation by farmers and that the crop check results are not widely known or extended within the DPI or the wider advisory service.

The project will provide additional resources to extend the current knowledge within the crop check system relating to crops other than rice under irrigation and then encourage greater uptake of the system so that it forms a continuous improvement system for the non rice crops within the rotation and crop sequence. Ultimately the goal of this project is to lift the productivity, profitability and water use efficiency of irrigation farming within the southern Murray Darling Basin and to provide the mechanisms and support network to achieve this.

Expected Outcome:

An objective assessment of the current status of on farm irrigation infrastructure and enterprise mix and rotation sequence across the irrigated regions Lachlan - Vic Murray valleys.

Expected Outputs:

1. Documented survey results including assessment of the limitations and barriers to adoption of previous research into irrigated cropping systems and agronomy and water use efficiency; new ideas to improve viability and identify gaps for future work.

2. An economic model of irrigation farming in the southern Murray Darling Basin for use by individual farmers to optimise the rotations on any given farm for any given seasonal water allocation.

3. Extension of current knowledge on higher value rotations and crop production under irrigation.