North Otago irrigation scheme has become just the second beneficiary of a government scheme designed to foster sustainable economic growth in New Zealand.
The North Otago Irrigation Company (NOIC) was awarded a $70,000 grant from the Ministry of Primary Industries' Irrigation Acceleration Fund to go towards an 800ha expansion of the Oamaru-based company's Tilverstowe irrigation project.
Company chief executive Robyn Wells said the grant would help enable a third extension to its long-running North Otago irrigation scheme, after previous extensions on its Duntroon line last year and Paradise Gully in 2009. Mrs Wells said that in awarding the grant, the ministry had recognised the quality of the company's business plan to deliver reliable and cost-effective water to the widest possible area of North Otago, as well as its dedication to high environmental standards and water-use efficiency.
"The Tilverstowe extension project is part of a staged programme of work that will eventually result in the full uptake of the 8000 l/sec of water allocated to NOIC. The completion of this work, scheduled to deliver water by this spring, will take the area serviced by NOIC water to over 14,000ha and represents an important step forward in our stage 2 plans."
The scheme would also bring benefits to the area's farmers, she said.
"The benefits essentially are that they can have more productivity from their land with access to water so they can make on-farm investments with confidence, knowing that they have got that backup of reliable water."
The IAF programme had only awarded one other grant since the government-funded programme was established last year, and programme manager Kevin Steel said NOIC's "comprehensive approach" and "commercial discipline" had been two reasons it was successful in obtaining the grant.
"This is exactly the type of project that the IAF was designed to support," he said.
