BUNDABERG cane grower Richard Zunker admits that a decade ago he would have irrigated for the sake of irrigating.
Nowadays with stinging electricity and water prices, that’s well and truly a thing of the past.
“We used to irrigate pretty willy-nilly back in the good old days if you want to call them that,” Mr Zunker said.
“Things are just getting tighter and tighter and tighter. There’s going to be a point where farmers are just going to say, we just can’t do it any more.
“Sugar is a high water and electricity user. Everyone is trying to get as efficient as they can.”
Mr Zunker was at the launch of the Agricultural Energy Council in Bundaberg among the politicians and industry representatives, many of which used his tractor for a photo opportunity.
He said every move to help ease input costs such as power, water and wages was a good thing, as long as progress was made.
“Anything that can help. As long as it doesn’t get tied up with red tape and things come out of it, it’s all good,” Mr Zunker said.
“If at the end of it nothing happens, than what was the use of it?”
He said as production costs have risen, many of his colleagues have considered alternative crops but he wondered if the money going into establishing them was “digging a bigger hole for yourself”.
Mr Zunker grows about 162 hectares (400 acres) of cane on a coastal property towards Bargara, with another block at Bucca.
In the past fortnight his cane crop received about 80mm of rain. He said a bit more would help get it through the summer heat and humidity.