By June 30 this year the CRC for Irrigation Futures will have finished the research program we commenced in 2006. However, we will continue limited operations until the end of September 2010 in order to communicate and commercialise many of our research outcomes and to manage an effective windup of our affairs.

Communications and commercialisation efforts will be managed by Bill Williamson, Kelvin Montagu and myself. Kelvin Montagu will continue in the role of Knowledge Manager and relinquish his Education Program Leader role as our students have mostly completed. The emphasis in the remaining months of this role will be to publish as much quality research as possible and ensure an effective handover of CRC IF Knowledge Products to ensure continued easy access for many years.

Bill Williamson will complete his role as Toolkits Program Manager in June and then take on the new role of Commercialisation Manager for all of CRC IF. In doing so he will be supported by an agreed set of commercialisation principles formally adopted by our participant (owner) organisations, including the following:

National or International?
While not rejecting the commercial potential outside Australia, the focus of any commercialisation plan has to be Australian industry and community benefit. Furthermore the Commonwealth's CRC Program wishes to see preferential involvement of Australian SMEs.

Urban – Rural – Geographic Coverage
CRC IF was set up to serve the whole irrigation industry, not just any one sector. However it is recognised that certain technologies are most suited to certain sectors and cannot be delivered to all. The actual and potential geographic reach of commercialisation partners must be taken into account as a key driver of access to technology and its adoption.

Profit or Utilisation
These two aims are not mutually exclusive but the emphasis in commercialisation plans will be adoption and utilisation. The suggestion that giving things away for free will maximise adoption is rejected as too simplistic. The involvement of SMEs is critical to the long-term sustainable delivery of many of our research outcomes.

Building Long-term Relationships Between SMEs and Research Groups
There are many reasons to try to build relationships between research groups and commercial licensees during this process. Many of the technologies will continue to evolve in the hands of both researchers and industry and this effort can be harnessed to assist both. Commercialisation plans can be written to at least encourage long-term collaboration.

So while the conference in June is a big part of our finalisation and goodbyes I look forward to a few more months yet of endeavouring to get our research outcomes into the hands of end users and beneficiaries.

See you in Sydney at One Water Many Futures.

Ian Atkinson
Chief Executive Officer

Curious about what One Water Many Futures keynote speakers have to say? Dr Sandra L. Postel and Prof Kader Asmal have now made their abstracts available online. Click on the links to read Prof Asmal’s views on 'Responsible Transformation of Water Management in an Era of Scarcity', or Dr Postel’s thoughts on ‘Irrigation in a Water-Stressed World: Adapting to a New Normal’.

Register today to make sure you don’t miss out on hearing Dr Postel and Prof Asmal at One Water Many Futures.

CRC for Irrigation Futures Technical Report series No. 01/10, Investment in Irrigation Technology: Water Use Change, Public Policy and Uncertainty, by Anthea McClintock is now available online.

Executive Summary
Investments in irrigation infrastructure and technologies, particularly those that reduce on-farm water use, have become a major focus of government programs both at a state and federal level. Particular attention has been given to increasing the uptake of water “saving” technologies to achieve a range of environmental and social objectives. The design of programs capable of achieving public objectives requires an understanding of farm level investment decisions.

It is widely documented that technology adoption is usually motivated when a critical limit in the capacity of one part of the business operation is approaching, or has been reached. This point will usually be a trigger for change and often, the adoption of a new technology or process. It is when such a critical limit or stage is reached that the opportunity to adopt new technology becomes relevant. Government and industry groups are interested in understanding the key cause of delays in technology adoption.

In this context, the influence of uncertainty on decisions of when to invest in irrigation technology and infrastructure is examined. The potential for uncertainty to influence investment decisions is demonstrated using the method of Real Options valuation. The approach is applied to a case study which observes investment in on-farm storage evaporation mitigation systems. These technologies were chosen as reductions in evaporation represent a genuine water saving. It is shown that there are circumstances where uncertainty surrounding the value of water savings is sufficient enough to influence the decision to invest in such water saving technologies. Delaying an investment to wait for additional information about the project’s returns can have value in terms of the potential to avoid losses from downside risk. Where the loss avoided is greater than the profit forgone by waiting, it can be worthwhile for an individual to delay adoption.

Where uncertainty exists, rates of subsidy to encourage uptake of these technologies will be higher than rates indicated by traditional NPV analysis. When irrigators are required to relinquish water entitlements in return for a subsidy, the rate of subsidy required to change investment from current rates will be further increased. Depending on the magnitude of the public benefit expected from increased technology adoption, potential losses from adverse price movements may mean that delay is an optimal strategy from a social perspective as well (Rosenburg, 1976). Where this is the case, policies that encourage, adoption without regard for the influence of uncertainty on private investment decisions, may simply transfer the potential costs of uncertainty from the private investor to the taxpayer. Such circumstances will increase the likelihood of investments taking place in areas unlikely to generate a return on public investment.

“Value for money” criteria for investment of public funds in farm infrastructure projects are also discussed. Rates of subsidy, to encourage technology adoption, will have to be justified by the environmental benefits generated from using infrastructure investment programs to acquire water entitlements. Where premiums are paid above the market price for water entitlement recovered through infrastructure investment programs, evidence of the long term benefits to the community should be required. Such community benefits will be underpinned by the potential to achieve basin-level water savings, rather than localised savings, and to demonstrate that the same benefits cannot be achieved at a lower cost through other forms of public investment, either in agriculture or elsewhere in the economy.

Download the full report at the link below.

More information...

Want a more hands on conference experience? Then sign up for the workshops and tours being run in conjunction with the Australian Irrigation Conference and Exhibition 2010.

Join us on one of three post-conference tours to further discuss irrigation challenges. We'll be taking a walking tour through the City of Sydney to discuss urban irrigation while examining a number of landmarks, and that's just one option. You can also examine alternative water sources, including those at the Sydney Cricket Ground, and Pennant Hills Golf Club. Tour prices start from only $65 and include lunch.

After something a little different? Irrigation Australia is running four workshops, each offering practical business tips and advice. Metering, alternative water sources, farm dams and open space turf improvements will all be discussed.

Resources on farm dam management are now only a click away. Information is available on:
• Evaporation – measurement and control;
• Seepage - measurement and mitigation;
• Case studies and trial sites;
• An Economic Ready Reckoner to compare evaporation mitigation methods;
• Biodiversity;
• Water quality; and
• Weed and algae management.

The upgrades to the website and Ready Reckoner have been made possible by the National Program for Sustainable Irrigation, the CRC for Irrigation Futures, and the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture.

A workshop titled What's Your Dam Worth will be run at the Irrigation Australia Conference on June 8, 1-3pm.

Round 2 of the Professional Irrigation Services Network (PrISN 2) is underway, and at this point we are asking for expressions of interest for the further development and distribution of the following tools:

• Fullstop
• WASP
• Monolayer Applicator
• Monolayer Detector
• Centre Pivot/Lateral Move Irrigation Machine Training
• WaterSENSE

Once these tools are embedded with a Tier 1 partner, they will be made available to Tier 2 (agents who deliver services to irrigators).

Expressions of interest close on June 15, 2010. Full business plans will be requested to be submitted in July from selected candidates.

The Australian Irrigation Exhibition at Sydney, June 8 – 10, will be one opportunity to discuss the features of the technologies and tools. CRC IF Professional Irrigation Services will be at Stand 142. Please contact Bill Williamson for alternate times.

In the first instance respondents should register their interest to obtain an information pack, by filling in the online registration form.

This month's feature paper, entitiled Reducing Evaporation Losses, comes from Erik Schmidt. It was published in the International Water Power and Dam Construction journal in 2009. Please email Erik for a copy of the article.

Abstract
Australia is employing mitigation technologies to counter annual evaporation losses from irrigation storage dams and channels. Annual evaporation losses from these storages are estimated to be around 1.32GL/yr and up to 2.88GL/yr. A water balance approach provides a practical approach for estimating aggregate losses due to evaporation. The accuracy of this method depends greatly on the accuracy of the equipment used to measure the change in water depth. Monitoring systems and data analysis techniques have recently been commercialised by Aquatech Consulting as the Irrigate Seepage and Evaporation Meter. Chemical covers have been promoted as a low cost method to reduce evaporation losses. These products are generally biodegradable and there is a need to reapply frequently (between three to ten days). Monolayers also offer much potential for affecting evaporation savings but inconsistent evaporation saving performance has limited their adoption in Australia.