Hundreds attend irrigation conference in Lethbridge

“It’s one of the main events where you get, specifically, irrigated crop producers, so people who have a variety of crops but all use water to grow them in one room with agronomy advisors, the irrigation tech companies, and the infrastructure people and equipment dealerships,” says Appels.

She says irrigation researchers are often on the forefront of agricultural innovation, so the ideas shared at this event could reverberate into positive changes for farmers across the region.

Appels commended the work of researchers at Lethbridge College, particularly in agriculture-related fields. The school was ranked at 16th place in Research Infosource’s list of Canada’s Top 50 Research Colleges of 2022.

University of Lethbridge Professor Stefan Kienzle spoke about climate change and the impacts it has had and will continue to have in the agriculture industry.

He says the weather lately has been “too hot, too cold, too wet, and too dry.”

“The number of days when we have crop stress, for instance, which is typically days over 30 degrees Celsius, they are increasing tremendously across our growing region,” says Kienzle. “[It’s] the same thing with cold spells. Cold spells are also, interesting, doubling or quadrupling in numbers, so that means we have a much larger swing of extreme weather from very hot and dry to really cold, cool, and maybe wet.”

For example, Kienzle says in September 2020, the region was blanketed with one-to-two feet of snow, which greatly impacted harvests. An unseasonably-cold spring in 2022 kept farmers from seeding for several weeks later than usual.

He expects there to be far more days with high heat as well as more frequent cold spells in the years to come.

At least when it comes to dry weather conditions, Kienzle says irrigation is a farmer’s number-one defence. A good irrigation system will keep crops growing even when little moisture is falling on the ground.

Another of the morning’s presenters was Richard Phillips, the General Manager of the Bow River Irrigation District. He provided an update on the Alberta Irrigation Modernization Program.

In November 2021, the provincial government announced $118 million in funding for a series of irrigation infrastructure upgrades in Southern Alberta.

Phillips says, out of the 90-plus projects, approximately one-third have been completed, one-third are under construction, and one-third have yet to commence.

“The bulk of the projects are pipelines, replacing canals, some structure projects, some canal upgrades, and up to four reservoir projects,” says Phillips.

He explains that the irrigation pipelines are “incredibly important” in terms of reducing water use and waste.

Phillips adds that “We’ve more than doubled the irrigated areas since 1970, but we’re using significantly less water than we were back at that time in terms of actual diversions, so the efficiency gains have been exceptional.”

Because of their ability to reduce water use, Phillips says that irrigation pipelines are key to future farmland expansions as “water is the limiting factor.”

A 2021 study commissioned by the Alberta Irrigation Districts Association found that irrigation contributes $5.4 billion annually to Alberta’s GDP and that every dollar invested by the Government Alberta into irrigation-related activities resulted in $3.56 in added revenue for the province.

by David Opinko

Hundreds attend irrigation conference in Lethbridge

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