b"A flax field in southern Alberta that is watered by irrigation.PHOTO: ST. MARY RIVER IRRIGATION DISTRICTIn Westwoods own irrigation district, SMRID, they aremore acres under irrigation, which again allows either more working on a pipeline project that had originally been designedproduction of the same crops or potentially more specialized 15 years ago but was shelved due to challenges receivingcrops than we currently do today.approvals and agreements with landowners for construction.In recent years, potato production has expanded in the I know, talking personally to some of those impactedprovince with Cavendish Farms building a new processing plant irrigators on that particular project, they are very excited thatin Lethbridge, Alta. Terence Hochstein, executive director of the they're finally getting a pipeline. Their old conveyance channelsPotato Growers of Alberta, says the modernization project will were one of the oldest ones that we had in the district, and wereallow for the potato industry in the province to expand even dirt conveyance in some cases, he says. more possibly. The irrigation modernization project means what is alreadyWe should be able to irrigate more acres with the same an extremely diversified growing region can become evenamount of water because of these efficiency gains. And it'll open more diversified, Trevor Lewington, the CEO of Economicup some new ground that was previously dry land that could Development Lethbridge, which is located in the irrigationnow be considered irrigationgrown for potatoes and other region, says. crops, Hochstein explains in a phone interview.It adds new storage capacity, so that's good news. Expanding the Chin reservoir system means there's more water madeUpdate on Saskatchewans Irrigation Projectavailable, he explains in a phone interview. That does addIn the summer of 2020, the Saskatchewan government 32SPUDSMART.COM Winter 2022"