Guy Barnett,Minister for Primary Industries and Water
The Tasmanian Liberal Government is supporting high-surety irrigation schemes and farmers in the Fingal area are urged to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy into the Fingal Irrigation Scheme.
Tasmanian Irrigation has this week launched water sales for the new 12,600 megalitre Fingal Irrigation Scheme, enabling farmers located on 28,571 hectares around Fingal, Avoca and Conara through to Perth to contractually commit to water entitlements.
If the pre-determined sales threshold is reached then construction is forecast to commence in October 2022 and commissioning in mid-2025, ready for the 2025/26 irrigation season.
It is expected that the $53.82 million scheme will create an estimated 78 direct and indirect jobs and enable farmers to invest, expand, diversify and employ more workers with confidence.
Under the latest Fingal Irrigation Scheme design, water will be harvested from the South Esk River during the winter period and pumped into a to-be-constructed 14,000 ML dam before being released back into the South Esk for riparian delivery to farmers.
The Fingal Valley is regarded as one of the drier areas of Tasmania, so high-surety irrigation water is set to underpin additional investment and expansion across fodder crops, potatoes, cereals, poppy production, livestock finishing and new enterprises.
The Tasmanian Government has committed $108.7 million toward the first five Tranche Three projects which are being planned for Fingal, Don, Northern Midlands, Tamar and an augmentation of Sassafras Wesley Vale.
Tasmanian Irrigation is using its innovative approach to planning and construction to deliver irrigation schemes around the State to assist the Tasmanian Government's plan of increasing the farm gate value of Tasmanian agriculture to $10 billion by 2050.
