Business South August 2020

22 | Volume 29 | Issue 4 businesssouth We are rural people working with rural people 159 Alford Forest Road, Ashburton 16 Hilton Highway, Timaru Level 1, 72 Thames Street, Oamaru www.irricon.co.nz Irricon has an experienced and fully qualified team to help you with your farm resource management requirements: • Preparation of Farm Environment Plans (FEP) • Farm Environment Plan Auditing • Preparation of Overseer Nutrient Budgets • Resource consent applications and assessments of effects • Property due diligence • Planning, catchment group collaboration and technical advice for the planning process • Management of compliance and FEP requirements/actions with CompliancePro • Irrigation efficiency assessments, aquifer testing, effluent pond seepage testing, irrigation pond inspections and water quality monitoring programmes Proud to be associated with North Otago Irrigation Co. Switchbuild specialise in the integration of process & control systems and the presentation of plant data • Services: Design / ACAD / Commissioning • Dashboards: Customised Data Acquisition • Reports: Process / Operational / Compliance • Alarm Notification: Operator Plans • Programming: PLC / HMI / SCADA / Telemetry • Systems Engineering: Industrial networks / Communications • Switchboards: Motor Control Centres, Power Distribution • Electrical Technician: Switchboard and process upgrades Huge benefits from scheme The water is delivered on-demand and under pressure to farm boundaries and in almost every case no further on-farm pumping is required. • from page 20 Borton’s pond was created as the intake area for the Lower Waitaki Irrigation Scheme when it was built in the 1970’s. The intake gates are capable of allowing up to 27 cumecs distributed between Lower Waitaki Irriga- tion Company and NOIC. A feature of the NOIC scheme is that water is piped and pumped under pressure whereas most schemes in New Zealand rely on open-race systems. “The scheme was developed by people who recognised what could be, but it was a relatively ambitious scheme given the technology required to get the water to the elevated areas, but the effect of reliable water on what were always outstanding soils has been remarkable.” At peak flow NOIC pumps as much water as Auckland utilises in a day. Its eight cumec capacity is now close to being both fully utilised and fully consented Environmental management is “front and centre” of NOIC’s ethos. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT » North Otago Irrigation Company “We were the first of the schemes to officially adopt farm environment plans and make them mandatory for our farmer shareholders. To give us the authority to compel good farming practice, we asked the Otago Regional Council to enshrine this requirement in our consent.” This requirement has been in place since 2006, revealing the “forward-mindedness” of the archi- tects of the scheme, Andrew says. “Managing the delivery of irrigation water responsibly and managing the impact of higher pro- duction farming was fundamental to the privilege that we felt we had to use a public resource. “That comes with a degree of responsibility, a social licence if you like. We are determined to do our bit to mitigate any of the negative effects that might arise from high productivity farming.” NOIC invests directly in securing environmental outcomes, providing criteria-based funding to its shareholders for environmental initiatives such was wetland planting and planting of native fauna and flora. “Our shareholder base are all incredibly enthusi- astic stewards of the land.”