Water for Summer Crops

7 November 2003

The outlook for summer crop plantings is better than last season despite the continuing drought, according to Geoff Hipkins, Chief Executive of Murrumbidgee Irrigation. "While allocations are still significantly below average, intermittent rainfall has meant water use on winter crop is well down on last year", said Mr Hipkins.

"There is almost 10% more water available to our shareholders for summer crops compared to the end of October last year". Mr Hipkins added, "the company expects some under use this season, reflecting the conservative water budgets prepared by growers in light of the continuing drought". "We are considering arrangements similar to last year to provide a reasonable level of water insurance to help finish growing crops. This is most likely to involve arrangements to advance an irrigators own after summer water, and it will obviously involve some cost to the users".

"Further details will be announced when our current crop survey data is available for planning and prediction of water use levels".

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