Australia’s largest cane grower MSF Sugar will invest $3.2M in an irrigation efficiency project for its Tableland region farms.
The integrated grower, processor, marketer and exporter of raw sugar, farms around 11,000 hectares of cane across the state including nearly 3000 hectares of irrigated cane at the Tableland.
MSF Sugar project manager Damon Falvo said that, among other improvements, this project will transform more than 100 ha of low-efficiency furrow irrigation into best-practice drip irrigation.
“As an irrigation expert it’s really exciting for me to be involved in planning and delivering this project,” Mr Falvo said.
“We’ll have fully automated sub-surface drip irrigation over an entire farm that is now using furrow irrigation. We can put just the right amount of water on exactly when we want it, and we can fertilise through the system as well,” he said.
Mr Falvo said that on top of the lower input costs and increased crop yields, there were environmental benefits from keeping water and nutrients in the crop’s root zone.
MSF Sugar CEO Mike Barry said the project adds to the company’s $18M irrigation system investment in the area and follows on from the purchase and successful re-development of the 230 ha ex-Greenoil property at Tabacum.
“Sub-surface drip irrigation is working really well for us there, so it makes good sense to roll it out on our other farms,” Mr Barry said.
The company owns and operates four sugar mills with a total crushing capacity of 4.7 million tonnes and produces close to 550,000 tonnes of raw sugar per annum.
