For as long as farmers have grown crops, they've needed to put water on the soil.

In ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, agriculture depended on regular and seasonal floods. Several millennia later and on a different continent, it's not so easy.

Early in the 20^th century farming pioneers in the Thompson Region built elaborate flumes to get water to parched Interior soils. The most famous example is at Walhachin, where gentlemen British farmers built wood flumes to transport water by gravity from an upland lake.

The incredible effort and skill of the newcomers was undone by frequent breaks and the intervention of the First World War, which took the farmers to the trenches of Europe, from where few returned.

The rich history of Walhachin can be easily spotted along the Trans-Canada Highway, where flumes remain visible on the hillside.

A few kilometres farther west and nearly 100 years later, modern-day irrigation can be seen spraying water on alfalfa fields.

When Dick Ford got into business in the early 1970s in Williams Lake, some farmers in the Cariboo were still using ditching to irrigate land. Eventually wheel lines and hand lines were employed to water soils.

But demand for the latest centre-pivot systems, examples of which can be seen at Tobiano and in the Rayleigh area, is driven by costs.

Even in a difficult economy, Ford said farmers and ranchers are looking to cut the labour-intensive process of moving of irrigation lines by hand. Centre-pivot systems are powerful and automated.

"The main input is labour," Ford said of older systems. "Centre pivots give operators a chance to get rid of labour."

Ford expanded Highlands Irrigation Ltd. to a small office in Kelowna about five years ago. Last month the family owned business opened the doors to a Kamloops office in Mount Paul, where it competes with other firms, including Delta Irrigation as well as others based in Alberta.

A lot of work for Highlands Irrigation already existed in this region, with Dick's son, Chris, running the operation out of a home office.

Now the new office is open with a staff of three — a vote of confidence in the economy and in agriculture. Ford said his firm will make customer service a key component.

The small firm will add to the city's agricultural sector, which includes ranches, equipment dealers and a service industry.

Ford acknowledged the beef industry in particular has seen many operations change hands or simply sell off herds. But he believes it has seen bottom and is now in a rebuilding stage.

There is also growth in new vegetable crop operations in the Interior, corn in the North Okanagan and purchase of land by Coastal dairy operations being pushed out by neigbourhood concerns and high property values.

Those dairy operations require a steady diet of hay, which is driving the need for irrigation. Irrigation is needed for many sectors within agriculture, providing a diversity for Highlands Irrigation and opportunities for growth.

"We've got a lot of faith in Kamloops as an area. There's good soils. We're seeing interest east of Kamloops with vegetable growers."

cfortems@kamloopsnews.ca