The Minister for Primary Industries is supporting calls from Canterbury farmers to make more irrigation available.
Nathan Guy says the drought affecting much of New Zealand emphasises the need for irrigation projects to store and distribute water.
Several schemes in Canterbury are either under construction or awaiting consent from the Environment Court, but farmers are critical of how expensive the water will be for them to use.
Mr Guy says if current proposals are advanced, another 420,000 hectares of irrigated land could be available over time.
He says research from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) suggests exports could be boosted by $4 billion a year by 2026, which would support thousands of new jobs.
