Irrigation: the expense of expansion

By Cal Braid
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Historically, the productivity coming out of an irrigated parcel of land is significantly higher than dry land. It also has the security of having a productive crop year over year because it’s not completely weather dependent on rainfall. However, there’s a catch: It ain’t cheap.

 As general manager of Canada’s largest irrigation district, David Westwood knows the business of supplying water to thirsty farmland. Westwood’s St. Mary River Irrigation District has upwards of 500,000 acres under irrigation after amalgamating with the Taber Irrigation District in 2022.

While irrigation is a more surefire ticket to crop success than dry land, Westwood said it involves a lot more than buying pivots for one’s land. The overall cost includes the pump, power source, pipeline, controls, and installation fees, and that’s just the hardware for a functional system. A quarter section pivot could cost $160K to $175K factoring in the components and setup.

 “It’s a significant capital investment, and it’s not just putting in the pivots,” Westwood said. “For example, if that land now becomes a potato crop, you’re going to be looking at having to then build storage to be able to handle the potatoes, because based on your contracts, they ship all year round. You’ve got to store them in the off-season when it’s not growing season, all those kinds of things. It’s almost always much more than just the investment in the actual irrigation infrastructure of the pivot; it’s all the ancillary things of what you need to do on your farm to be able to grow that product, store that product, and then ship that product.”

 Fuel and truck costs are an added consideration, too. Farmers require trucks or in some cases, a fleet of trucks and drivers to haul loads of crops to elevators or processing facilities.

 In 2022, SMRID increased its expansion limit acres. The District’s modeling indicated that between the pipeline modernization project savings plus the extra storage from the planned Chin Reservoir expansion, it would be able to service up to 80,000 more acres.

 “We had a lottery for the first 15,000 acres and we’re doing these in very digestible (increments) over many, many years. Those now have been fully subscribed for and by this irrigation season coming up, those new 15,000 acres are now potentially coming into production.”

 Some farmers will be irrigating on previously held dry land, and some are expanding upon pre-existing irrigation. 

“Some are just putting irrigation acres on a parcel of land that did not have irrigation acres on it before, but a part of that parcel did so,” Westwood explained. “A classic example would be they had enough irrigation acres under the circle pivot, but in the past had never chosen to have irrigation acres in the four dry corners of a circle pivot. But now they’ve chosen to put irrigation acres on all those corners, and it gives them the flexibility they may want to do a corner arm system, or they just may want the water that comes along with those acres.”

 Building a progressive and productive farming business is no cinch, but modern advancements have turned agriculture into a huge business–if you can afford the buy-in.