The first step in the joint venture with Deakin University was providing $40,000 to develop a business case study for the centre.

Some councillors voiced concerns about spending so much money on a case study, citing past studies which had cost $30,000 and had little visible benefit to the community.

Councillor Paul Rossetto, who originally proposed the concept, said it just made sense.

“We’re one of the biggest food production areas in the country,” Cr Rossetto said.

“We’ve also got the largest irrigation corporation with Murrumbidgee Irrigation.

“It’s time to put us under the ‘centre of excellence’ banner and be recognised as such.”

The centre would be a joint venture between Griffith City Council and Deakin University, which had taken over the CSIRO facility in Griffith as a field station for its Centre for Regional and Rural Futures (CeRRF). It was expected the initial $40,000 investment would help attract future government funding.

Associate professor John Hornbuckle addressed Tuesday night’s council meeting on behalf of Deakin University and said it was an opportunity to bring leading research and development to irrigation.

“This is Australia’s most intensive irrigation area,” Dr Hornbuckle said.

“Water is the key to a prosperous regional community and this will put Griffith at the forefront of irrigation.”

Dr Hornbuckle said the CeRRF had grown since taking over the old CSIRO facility in 2015, with nine full-time employees working on local, national and international research projects, including Australian Young Farmer of the Year Anika Molesworth.

“We’ve experienced rapid expansion,” Dr Hornbuckle said.

“We’ve now got world-class students and a unique facility in Australia.”

Cr Rossetto said people travelled from around the world to see what irrigators were doing and it was time for Griffith to show the world what it was good at.

“This area is renowned as being great for irrigation,” Cr Rossetto said.

“They come to see what we have done with less water due to drought and how we’re handling things like the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.”

Cr Rossetto said the timing could not be better, as the centre would be useful to not only research irrigation, but also develop irrigation best practices.

“I’d like to see students and farmers be able to take courses here in Griffith on irrigation,” he said.

“We’ve had general security allocations reduced, which means fewer crops, so it’s important we look at ways to become more efficient.

“We need to be smarter and if we can do more with less we can lessen the pain.”

According to a draft document which was presented to councillors with the proposal, the initiative “will help the irrigation and wider industries improve productivity per unit of water, mitigate environmental impacts, enter new markets and adjust to challenges and capitalise on opportunities arising from policy and structural reform relating to water”.

Cr Rossetto also hoped Deakin University’s research expertise would help replace CSIRO with local problems like blue-green algae.