MOOSE JAW, Sask. – The agricultural benefits of irrigation are obvious, but Saskatchewan’s irrigators want to know what other benefits it provides.
The Saskatchewan Irrigation Projects Association (SIPA) has commissioned Graham Parsons of Clifton Associates to find out.
SIPA chair Rodger Pederson said the study is the single biggest issue the board will tackle in the next year.
“That’s something we’ve tried to get off the ground for a number of years now,” he said.
It’s been a focus of discussions with government as SIPA looks at irrigated acreage expansion.
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“We want expansion but it needs to be sustainable,” Pederson said.
“It needs to be environmentally in touch with what’s going on out there, with what people want.”
Parsons said irrigation provides tourism, wildlife habitat and a secure municipal water supply for population growth.
As well, it is a component of climate change adaptation.
“These are not trivial contributions,” he told the association’s recent conference in Moose Jaw.
He said these benefits must be explained to the many stakeholders, including the public and government.
“More engineering studies won’t necessarily make the case.”
Parsons said the industry must develop a positive scenario, showing the cost-benefit analysis and ratios of producer-to-society benefits.
Alberta’s healthy irrigation sector employs 7,000 people, is responsible for $2.5 billion in agricultural shipments and $700 million in value added business.
In contrast, Saskatchewan’s pace of development has been so slow that in some cases infrastructure already installed has rotted, he said.
He will examine irrigation’s role on farms, in regional and municipal water systems and in value added development.
“Getting the results of that study and seeing how that’s going to fit in a development proposal, if you will, for the government, I think that would be our No. 1 priority,” Pederson said.
Meanwhile, SIPA is also looking at the possibility of changing its name. Pederson said the word “projects” discourages some individual irrigators from joining.
“Maybe it’s as simple as ‘Irrigation Saskatchewan,’ but SIPA has a recognition factor that we tried to build up over the past 12 years and we don’t want to just throw that away that quickly either,” he said.
If the board can come up with an acceptable name, it will bring it forward at next year’s annual general meeting.
Also up for consideration is the possibility of check-off funding. A motion from the floor at last week’s meeting suggested that a checkoff is one way to increase funding to SIPA.
Right now, the organization operates on limited funds from membership fees of 40 cents per acre for irrigators and a flat $200 for associate members.
Pederson said a checkoff would likely have to be tied to water rather than acreage.
“Water is the common factor,” he said, whether irrigators are farmers or industrial customers.
