About Smarter Irrigation for Profit Phase II

The Smarter Irrigation for Profit Phase 1 project enabled the completion of valuable research in areas including irrigation system audits, irrigation scheduling research, investigation of new technology, evaluation of system design and water use efficiency assessments. It demonstrated that improved water productivity hinged on ‘Getting the Basics Right’. It found that irrigators could achieve a 10-20 percent improvement in farm profitability by adopting best practice and precision irrigation technologies. This initial project has now led to phase 2.

Smarter Irrigation for Profit Phase 2 (SIP2) is a partnership between the irrigation industries of sugar, cotton, grains, dairy and rice, research organisations and farmer groups. The objective of SIP2 is to improve the profit of over 4,000 irrigators. It has 14 sub-projects covering three main components:

• Development of new irrigation technologies including new sensors, advanced analytics to improve irrigation scheduling and strategies to reduce water storage evaporation.
• Cost effective, practical automated irrigation systems for cotton, rice, sugar and dairy.
• Closing the irrigation productivity yield gap for cotton, rice, dairy, sugar and grains irrigators through a network of 46 farmer led optimised irrigation sites and key learning sites located on commercial farms across Australia.