Elizabeth Soal, Irrigation New Zealand
Irrigated agriculture in the Canterbury Region of New Zealand’s South Island.
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lizabeth Soal is the CEO of Irrigation New Zealand, a member-founded industry organization committed to representing the interests of New Zealand’s irrigation sector and promoting best practices across the industry. In this interview, Ms. Soal tells Irrigation Leader how COVID‑19 has affected Irrigation New Zealand and describes the actions it has taken to protect its employees. Irrigation Leader: Please tell us about yourself and about Irrigation New Zealand.
40 | IRRIGATION LEADER | JUNE 2020 - COVID-19 SPECIAL ISSUE
Elizabeth Soal: On March 21, the New Zealand government announced that the country would operate based on a system of four different alert levels governing people’s movements and what they could and couldn’t do. From March 25 to April 27, we were operating at alert level 4, which meant that anyone who could work from home had to do so. The only people who were allowed to work as usual were essential service providers, including healthcare workers, supermarket workers, and those providing services like emergency electrical work. Critically, it also included people working in the food production sector, including farming and irrigation. The irrigation service industry and the companies that design, restore, repair, and maintain irrigation equipment were also deemed to be essential service providers. However, in order to be approved by the government to remain open, companies have had to put in place programs to protect their workers. Their employees must maintain 2 meters of distance from each other, and companies must provide their workers with IRRIGATIONLEADERMAGAZINE.COM
PHOTO COURTESY OF KRZYSZTOF GOLIK.
Elizabeth Soal: Irrigation New Zealand is the national leadership body that represents the interests of irrigation schemes, which are the same as irrigation districts, as well as farmer-irrigators and the irrigation service sector across New Zealand. Irrigation New Zealand has around 3,500 members across New Zealand, although the bulk of irrigation in New Zealand is in Canterbury and Otago on the South Island. Prior to taking on this role in early 2019, I worked for about 8 years with a group of irrigation districts in North Otago and South Canterbury. Irrigation schemes in New Zealand are generally privately owned companies with farmers as shareholders. Unlike U.S. irrigation districts, they usually don’t have any public officials involved in their governance.
Irrigation Leader: How has the COVID‑19 pandemic affected your operations and the operations of your irrigation schemes?
