The two-day workshop was hosted by Hobart-based Goanna Energy Consultants and was the latest workshop in the Water for Profit program run by the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA).

Goanna principal consultant Marc White said the principles of energy consumption were very similar, they just needed to be applied to a particular industry, whether that be small business or agriculture.

“One of the main things that has come up has been how to reduce costs with irrigation, it is one of farmers’ main energy costs,” Mr White said.

He said the consultancy sessions were aimed at equipping farmers with the right knowledge.

“We wanted to ensure consumers were beneficiaries not victims,” he said.

Longford mixed cropping and livestock farmer Piers Dumaresq said irrigation was his number-one cost on the farm.

“Energy is a major source of costs with irrigation being the main one, pump costs, it’s the largest cost in total across my business,” he said.

Mr Dumaresq said he attended the workshop to learn more about energy consumption and also to better read his energy bill, which he said he had achieved while at the event.

“I have a better understanding of how it all works,” he said.

Mr Dumaresq said as a farmer he needed to know about a lot of different elements and energy consumption was one of them.

Mr White said the workshops were all about trying to give farmers some practical knowledge that would allow them to take home a mental “to-do list” they could implement on the farm.

“A lot of the principles are the same, they are common sense things like the way you drive your tractors, the lights you use in processing facilities and whether you can use your irrigation pumps during off-peak times but they are not always things that people think of unless its presented to them,” he said.

Mr White said the program covered off on topics such as renewable energy options, how to monitor consumption and cost of energy, how to identify where energy is being used on-farm, how Tasmania fits in the global energy market and an insight into the Tasmanian energy market.

The program was held last week at the Mount Pleasant Laboratories in Launceston and about 20 farmers attended over the two days. The Water for Profit program is presented by TIA and funded by the state government.