Is this a good thing? Copied from the Austrailian. Sorry for the long read. But aren't our sugar producers already under pressure? Aren't we already supplying sorghum into China? Hasn't the Ord already been trialled and proven unviable? What's everyone's thoughts?
The Abbott government has chosen the Ord irrigation area in the remote East Kimberley as the centrepiece of its ambitious plans to develop wild northern Australia into a rich agricultural region supplying valuable food exports to Asia.
The government’s soon-to-be-released northern Australian policy white paper will include $140 million of federal funding to raise the height of the main spillway wall of the vast Lake Argyle by four metres, adding 50 per cent to its massive 10,670-gigalitre capac*ity.
The extra water will boost the amount of land below the Ord River dam that can be irrigated from the current 18,000 hectares to a potential 100,000ha, opening the way for further large-scale land development investment, cropping farm expansion and new food-processing ventures.
The federal government focus on the Ord region comes as Chinese company Shanghai Zhongfu, awarded the right two years ago to turn 13,000ha of scrub country into fertile new irrigated cropping fields northeast of Kunu*nurra, sowed its first crops this week.
The general manager of Zhongfu’s local subsidiary Kimberley Agricultural Investment, Jim Engelke, said KAI had spent more than $50m turning 5400ha of the Goomig expansion area into cropping country, clearing trees, building irrigation channels and levelling paddocks.
But the planned sugarcane crops cannot be sown, as without 30,000ha of canefields producing at least two million tonnes of sugar, the $425m sugar mill KAI had planned to build next year cannot proceed.
Instead, the plan has changed to grow grain and chia crops this year, sweet sorghum for distilling into the Chinese alcoholic drink baijiu and cotton for the next few years, and possibly sugarcane in the future if the Northern Territory and West Australian governments, with the agreement of Aboriginal traditional owners, speed up the release of new areas of pastoral land capable of being converted to irrigated farms.
“Sugar remains the long-term plan but you must have scale: agriculture requires long-term thinking,” Mr Engelke said yesterday, as vast black soil paddocks ringed by the Kimberley’s red rock hills were sown to sorghum.
“We need more land releases and we need Ord Stage 3 going ahead or sugar can’t happen; waiting for land releases isn’t about agriculture or northern development, it’s just government hold-ups.”
Peter Stubbs, the director of the Ord-East Kimberley Expansion Project, said a government commitment to raising the spillway wall height, adding 5000GL of water to Lake Argyle — equivalent to an extra 10 Sydney Harbours — would droughtproof all future development of farmland and industries proposed for the Kununurra area that might need water.
Also set for funding is the dup*li*cation of the main Ord irriga*tion channel so it can carry enough water to supply 14,000ha more of potential farmland 60km northeast of Kununurra in the Territory, in the Keep River Plains, and a sealed road leading to this Ord Stage 3 farm expansion zone.
The 12,000ha of existing irrig*ated land in the Ord valley grows $100m of farm produce; but the arriv*al of Shanghai Zhongfu with $750m to spend, tripling the cropping area, building a $425m sugar and ethanol mill and developing Wyndham Port has given the remote* region cash, scale, a vision and new momentum.
“For the federal government, it means by spending just $140m raising the dam wall you get a pretty big bang for your buck,” Mr Stubbs said.
The federal budget included a $5 billion fund to be made available to help private investors and companies jointly develop vital infra*structure in Australia’s north, from roads, ports, irrigation channels, trains and airports to processing plants and bigger towns.
The two big game-changers for the Ord irrigation scheme — regularly branded an expensive taxpayer-funded white elephant in the 50 years since its development — have been the successful arrival of foreign investment in the form of KAI as the developers of its second-stage land expansion, and the changing recognition by traditional indigenous land owners that agricultural development and investment holds the key to future prosperity.
Just this week, two Chinese businessmen with significant funds to invest toured the Ord with Shanghai Zhongfu billionaire owner and president Wu Pui Ngai.
They were interested in investing in developing shallow Wyndham Port so it can take 30,000-tonne grain ships exporting sorghum and other grain crops to China; building abattoirs and feedlots; funding prawn processing plants or cotton gins, and priv*ately-owned freight rail lines.
Ord River Investment
The Abbott government has chosen the Ord irrigation area in the remote East Kimberley as the centrepiece of its ambitious plans to develop wild northern Australia into a rich agricultural region supplying valuable food exports to Asia.
The government’s soon-to-be-released northern Australian policy white paper will include $140 million of federal funding to raise the height of the main spillway wall of the vast Lake Argyle by four metres, adding 50 per cent to its massive 10,670-gigalitre capac*ity.
The extra water will boost the amount of land below the Ord River dam that can be irrigated from the current 18,000 hectares to a potential 100,000ha, opening the way for further large-scale land development investment, cropping farm expansion and new food-processing ventures.
The federal government focus on the Ord region comes as Chinese company Shanghai Zhongfu, awarded the right two years ago to turn 13,000ha of scrub country into fertile new irrigated cropping fields northeast of Kunu*nurra, sowed its first crops this week.
The general manager of Zhongfu’s local subsidiary Kimberley Agricultural Investment, Jim Engelke, said KAI had spent more than $50m turning 5400ha of the Goomig expansion area into cropping country, clearing trees, building irrigation channels and levelling paddocks.
But the planned sugarcane crops cannot be sown, as without 30,000ha of canefields producing at least two million tonnes of sugar, the $425m sugar mill KAI had planned to build next year cannot proceed.
Instead, the plan has changed to grow grain and chia crops this year, sweet sorghum for distilling into the Chinese alcoholic drink baijiu and cotton for the next few years, and possibly sugarcane in the future if the Northern Territory and West Australian governments, with the agreement of Aboriginal traditional owners, speed up the release of new areas of pastoral land capable of being converted to irrigated farms.
“Sugar remains the long-term plan but you must have scale: agriculture requires long-term thinking,” Mr Engelke said yesterday, as vast black soil paddocks ringed by the Kimberley’s red rock hills were sown to sorghum.
“We need more land releases and we need Ord Stage 3 going ahead or sugar can’t happen; waiting for land releases isn’t about agriculture or northern development, it’s just government hold-ups.”
Peter Stubbs, the director of the Ord-East Kimberley Expansion Project, said a government commitment to raising the spillway wall height, adding 5000GL of water to Lake Argyle — equivalent to an extra 10 Sydney Harbours — would droughtproof all future development of farmland and industries proposed for the Kununurra area that might need water.
Also set for funding is the dup*li*cation of the main Ord irriga*tion channel so it can carry enough water to supply 14,000ha more of potential farmland 60km northeast of Kununurra in the Territory, in the Keep River Plains, and a sealed road leading to this Ord Stage 3 farm expansion zone.
The 12,000ha of existing irrig*ated land in the Ord valley grows $100m of farm produce; but the arriv*al of Shanghai Zhongfu with $750m to spend, tripling the cropping area, building a $425m sugar and ethanol mill and developing Wyndham Port has given the remote* region cash, scale, a vision and new momentum.
“For the federal government, it means by spending just $140m raising the dam wall you get a pretty big bang for your buck,” Mr Stubbs said.
The federal budget included a $5 billion fund to be made available to help private investors and companies jointly develop vital infra*structure in Australia’s north, from roads, ports, irrigation channels, trains and airports to processing plants and bigger towns.
The two big game-changers for the Ord irrigation scheme — regularly branded an expensive taxpayer-funded white elephant in the 50 years since its development — have been the successful arrival of foreign investment in the form of KAI as the developers of its second-stage land expansion, and the changing recognition by traditional indigenous land owners that agricultural development and investment holds the key to future prosperity.
Just this week, two Chinese businessmen with significant funds to invest toured the Ord with Shanghai Zhongfu billionaire owner and president Wu Pui Ngai.
They were interested in investing in developing shallow Wyndham Port so it can take 30,000-tonne grain ships exporting sorghum and other grain crops to China; building abattoirs and feedlots; funding prawn processing plants or cotton gins, and priv*ately-owned freight rail lines.
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