1 Introduction
The brief for this paper was to determine the national economic contribution of irrigation in New Zealand, and the potential net contribution of further irrigation development to future economic growth. The information is primarily intended for MAF Policy to use in providing advice and information to government, and to provide context for the Sustainable Development Programme of Action (SDPoA).
2 Background
From the time of the earliest schemes up until the1980s, government policy considered irrigation to be in the national interest for the production of increasing amounts of primary products. Social and environmental outcomes via soil conservation and drought proofing of farms were also considered important and complementary to irrigation. Under various pieces of legislation2 a number of rivers were modified to provide both electricity and irrigation, with primacy for these values over the natural and conservation values of the rivers.
In many cases, these modifications are now seen as part of the current production and amenity environment, and provide many positive values to many people, albeit a different set to those that would have been there had the rivers not been modified.
In the decade leading up to the Resource Management Act (RMA) in 1991, there was increasing community pressure to provide a better balance between economic development and conservation, environmental and social values. Even so, irrigation development since 1991 has continued at a similar rate to the pre-RMA period. Although precise comparative figures do not exist, the irrigated area in New Zealand is believed to have doubled in the period from 1985 to 1995 (Robb, 20003). Significantly though, only two community schemes (Waimakariri and Opuha) have been developed through this period. Other development has been by individual irrigators.
Over the period from the 1930s up to 1984 there was considerable direct public investment in community irrigation schemes. In the 1930s, the provision of irrigation was secondary to the provision of work in building the schemes. Since a change in policy in 1985 there has been no direct central government investment in building irrigation schemes. Many New Zealanders know little about the role of irrigation in maintaining and enhancing our economic base. Through the 1990s, agriculture was viewed by some as a “sunset” industry. In recent years, agriculture has been increasingly recognised for its role as the underpinning economic engine of the New Zealand economy4 . The role of irrigation has also changed from drought proofing or insurance to being the means by which farmers and therefore the economy can diversify, and meet market expectations for quality and quantity of produce because of the increased control irrigation provides over a major production variable. In the future, as New Zealand is exposed increasingly to competition in world markets from lower cost economies, irrigation will be important to enable the agricultural sector to quickly respond to market signals on product quality, quantity and composition in niche markets. The application of biotechnology to our current and emerging land uses brings with it an even greater requirement for certainty of achieving produce of a specified quality and quantity, as a considerable investment has often been made in developing the technology to the point of production.
At the same time as wanting to maintain socio-economic growth, New Zealanders have higher expectations about the maintenance and enhancement of environmental and conservation outcomes from water use than was the case 20 years ago. Generally, an optimisation5 approach to these values is likely to be the way of the future. This will involve all New Zealanders understanding the role of water in the economy, the ways that combinations of desired outcomes can be achieved without necessarily excluding one or other use, and the trade-offs that are sometimes necessary to achieve this in the national interest. Therefore the place of irrigation in future will likely be very different from the past.
2 National Water and
Soil Conservation Act 1967 being the main one
3 Information on Water Allocation in New Zealand – April 2000,
Ministry for the Environment
www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/water
4 The Contribution of the Land-based Primary Industries to NZ’s
Economic Growth – 2003, for the Growth and Innovation Advisory Board.
www.maf.govt.nz/mafnet/publications
5 Note that “optimisation” is not the same as “multiple use” in
the way the 1967 National Water and Soil Conservation Act operated.
Contact for Enquiries
MAF Information Services
Pastoral House
25 The Terrace
PO Box 2526
Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
Fax: +64 4 894 0721
Contact this person
