The Ord Irrigation Scheme is leading the Western Australia Department of Agriculture to significantly increase its sugar cane trials.
The department believes the crop may make a comeback when the scheme is expanded.
The Ord is newly irrigated land which comes with permanent water rights attached and last month there were reports that a Chinese investment group has made a bid to buy 15 000 hectares in the Kimberly for beef and sugar production to meet the demand of China's rising middle class.
Recent surveys have found, however, that the majority of Australians are against foreign investment in prime agricultural land.
The company, trading as Kimberly Agricultural Investments (KAI) apparently wants to purchase the entire Ord Expansion Project in Western Australia’s Kimberly region.
The region’s sugar industry collapsed five years ago, as did finding for variety trials.
The department's Kimberley manager, Noel Wilson, has now told the ABC there is increased interest in variety trials again and that 18 different varieties of sugar cane will be trialled in the Ord in 2012.
"With the expansion of the Ord Irrigation Scheme coming up, we believe sugar cane may be one of the crops in the mix and could be a future crop for the area," he said.
"We thought we'd be a bit proactive and increase the (trial) area, so if sugar cane does become one of the crops (in Ord Stage 2) we will have a bit more plant cane available for people to use."