Mr. Speaker, in my riding we have the four largest irrigation districts in the country. The technology has moved from flood irrigation to sprinklers that used a lot of power and wasted a lot of water. Now the sprinkling systems have underground piping to convey the water. The efficiency in water usage has increased by a minimum of one-third in the same property to increase crop productivity.
Farmers can use a computer at home to analyze their property's soil sampling and find that they need two inches on one part while on another piece they only need one-quarter of an inch because of the soil retention. The productivity change from the 1960s and 1970s when I was young and out there with a shovel in an irrigation ditch has come with the highly technical way that farms can use their lands. It is incredibly different. It is highly efficient and uses a lot less energy.