Farmers urge Feds to back new Scottsdale irrigation scheme

Federal infrastructure funding is essential to the viability of the new Scottsdale Irrigation Scheme unveiled today, according to the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association.

“You can depend on our farmers to back the scheme with their own money, $12 million of it, but it will rely on public funding to get it across the start line,” TFGA chief executive Jan Davis said today.

“These large-scale, multi-user irrigation schemes are a much more efficient use of capital than individual farmers building their own storages,” she said. “That means there has to be a public/private capital

“With the north-east suffering the horrors from the contraction of the forest industry, it is imperative that we promote agriculture in what is one of the prime growing areas of the state.”

Tasmanian Irrigation has a funding submission before Infrastructure Australia, which would prime federal funding for the project.

The Scottsdale scheme is one a number of projects that forms the second tranche of irrigation development

The $46 million preferred option announced today would use water from Camden Rivulet on the Launceston-side of the Sidling Range that would be pumped to farmland as far away as Bridport and

It would provide 8600 megalitres a year for dairying, livestock, potatoes, poppies and vegetables.
Jan Davis, TFGA