The Ord River in the east Kimberley of Northern Australia has a catchment area of 64,000 square kilometres. The river is about 650 kilometres long draining into Cambridge Gulf near Wyndham with a mean stream flow at the river mouth of 4,500 gigalitres a year. Ord Stage 1: 14 000ha of irrigated farm land. Department of Agriculture and Food WA (DAFWA) have a long history of supporting the development of agriculture in the Kimberley region, including resource investigations and crop trials. Ord River Irrigation Expansion Stahe 2: Gooming farmlands. In late 2012, Chinese company Shanghai Zhongfu won the bid to lease and develop 13,400 hectares. Kimberly Agricultural Investment, an Australian company owned by Shanghai Zhongfu is to construct a $259 million sugar mill near Kununurra where it plans to produce and harvest four million tonnes of cane a year and about 500,000 tonnes of export sugar crystal. Our River Irrigation Expansion Stage 3: Cockatoo Sands. In 2012, DAFWA started soil and water investigations on 6000ha of red loamy soils (Cockatoo Sands) near Kunurra. The Cockatoo Sands have Great potential because they are welldrained and so have capacity to support agriculture throughout the wet season.