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Australia's northern beef industry is a significant contributor to regional economies in northern Australia, but is economically challenged by a range of factors including declining real beef prices, limited market opportunities, stalled productivity growth, increasing levels of enterprise debt, and low returns on investment. The long-term viability of the industry depends on achieving herd productivity gains and lifting enterprise profitability. Typical of the northern Australian beef industry, beef enterprises located in the Gulf of Carpentaria river drainage basins or catchments of north-west Queensland rely on extensive grazing of unimproved native pastures. Feed of reasonable quality is relatively plentiful during the annual wet season, but this is typically followed by feed shortages and sharply declining feed quality in the following dry season. Irrigation of some pasturage could potentially increase the availability and quality of …