We are proudly Tasmanian family owned and operated
Our family helping yours - its all about community
We know Tasmania, we are a family-owned Tasmanian business, just like yours and we are passionate about helping you access water for crops and livestock as easily and efficiently as possible. Our years of experience across Tasmania has meant we are continually finding innovative solutions for irrigation systems. We service, maintain and offer a genuine after-sales service for our customers if and when they need it.
Rob Ikin
Owner, Managing Director, Sales and Project Manager
Paul Arnold
Owner, Director, Financial Analyst, Business Admin, Corporate Customer Relations
Rob began his career in Agriculture after leaving school in 1985 when he took a position with Roberts Ltd as a ‘general boy’ and counter jumper at the tractor spare part counter.
When there was a downturn in the wool industry in 1987 which lead to redundancies at Roberts, Rob jumped ship, crossed the road and joined Webster Ltd where he was employed in the irrigation department. After 10 years learning his craft at Websters he left as the State Irrigation Manager. His next role was as an irrigation sales specialist at the then biggest irrigation company in Tasmania - JR Stephenson.
In 2000 he left JR Stephenson and travelled to Europe with his partner and upon returning 12 months later he started his own irrigation company. Having such an expensive holiday prior to starting a business probably wasn’t the smartest business decision, but both agreed the memories of travel were worth it. His travel partner became his wife and so their journey as a family began.
The turbulence of starting a business alone and competing against market leaders had its challenges and to maintain the vision of having his own irrigation business but maintaining cash flow he took a role in 2003 as a sales representative for local John Deere dealer, Midland Tractors.
This role was a valuable experience for Rob as he further developed his knowledge and experience of irrigation, farm machinery and importing equipment.
As well as a growing love of green and gold tractors and an appreciation of the importance to agriculture of high quality machinery and equipment, the opportunity to start a business again presented itself again in 2009, and so Van Diemen's Land Irrigation was born.
His years of experience importing quality irrigation brands from around the world culminating in the top notch mostly independent irrigation and pumping brands and equipment we sell today.
In Rob’s younger years he was involved in Scouting which created a love of the Tasmanian outdoors, wilderness, bushwalking, mountains and snow sports. Because the Tasmanian summer is such a busy season, Rob enjoys his passions in winter and has spent a lot of his winter months in the alpine region of Ben Lomond National Park, where he enjoys skiing with his family. In Rob’s spare time, he loves spending time with his family and friends camping in the bush, exploring mountains and beaches throughout Tasmania.
Paul’s career began as a Management Accountant at United Milk Products (UMP) in 1978, after graduating from UTAS with an Economics Degree.
Paul is passionate about the dairy industry as he spent his early childhood at Montagu on the North West Coast of Tasmania on a small 50 acre dairy farm with 40 cows.
UMP became United Milk Tasmania (UMT) with the dairy amalgamations and Paul enjoyed the challenge establishing a market for products that created the greatest return with milk - cheese was always the way to go.
After leaving UMT he purchased the Duck River piggery (300 sows) with one of his brothers, and learnt the hard knocks of agriculture first hand.
Paul and his brother also owned a Northern Tasmanian fuel business which had 15 service stations and farm fuel delivery. His career took a turn from agriculture to Local Government when he was appointed as the General Manager at the Circular Head and Burnie Councils between 1993-2010. Paul takes great pride in his achievements in Burnie during his 11 year term.
Paul was always destined to return to the private sector and agriculture in particular. Paul became involved in leasing dairy farms and helping in getting the Murray Goulburn Edith Creek factory functioning again after its closure and resale.
Paul joined VDLI in 2015 and is a firm believer in Tasmania's future opportunities in agriculture due to the high global demand for primary produce. Paul’s passion for Van Diemen’s Land Irrigation stems from a desire to improve Agriculture in Tasmania. Delivering competitive services state-wide and directly importing products to the Tasmanian market.
Paul lives with his wife Cynthia in Smithton, his adult children, partners and children still live locally and he takes great joy in being a grandparent. In his spare time he enjoys spending time with his family and fishing trips when the weather cooperates.
Our Staff
Rob and Paul own and operate Van Diemens Land Irrigation and work together as a close team who both bring to the business the required skills that are needed to make an irrigation business successful in todays fast paced world. Their business model is lean and efficient.
The team operate a remote office to keep administration costs low. Without having expensive premises to pay for and maintain means keeping overheads as low as possible, focussing on offering quality irrigation equipment, be highly competitive, flexible and quick.
We invest in our service, equipment, machinery and staff so we can offer the best installation, backup and service whilst still being highly cost competitive. We employ skilled, hard working and passionate staff to complete your irrigation project and service your equipment. We operate centrally in Tasmania out of Launceston and have irrigation clients and installations and staff in all areas of the state from Circular Head in the far North West to Port Arthur in the South East to Weldborough and Pyengana in the North East and East Coast, we can look after you.
Our staff are the core of our business, all of our irrigation fitters and installation staff want to do the best job for our clients. Most of our employees are from the land, early risers and will work farmer hours to get your project going. We don’t use outside contractors to build your pivots or install your projects.
Our commitment to you
We build, manufacture and complete your project using our own staff, this way our staff are constantly learning and understand our own equipment, and the team installing your irrigation equipment are the same ones that will service and look after it into the future. In recent years the Tasmanian irrigation market has become increasingly corporatised with major mainland and international companies owning and operating nearly all of the larger irrigation companies in Tasmania. We choose to remain proudly Tasmanian owned and operated and pride ourselves on choosing quality independent irrigation brands which we have developed a market for in Tasmania by importing into the state.
The equipment is of the highest quality and will stand the test of time dealing with our harsh terrain and weather. We partner with independent Australian and international brands with much of the equipment manufactured in Australia. These brands are as good or better than some well known irrigation brands marketed by corporate irrigation companies in Tasmania.
Support your Tasmanian company, we will look after you.
“I’m passionate about my home state, I love the outdoors, irrigation and agriculture in Tasmania. I have always prided myself on doing the best I can for my clients and most of all, doing and completing what I promise.” Rob Ikin, Managing Director