The Australian prawn fishing industry says the proposed development of the country's biggest irrigation project in North Queensland not only threatens its future in the Gulf of Carpentaria but has the capacity to "destroy" the area's banana prawn fishery.

Integrated Food and Energy Developments (IFED) has put forward a $2 billion proposal to build two dams and siphon 555,000 megalitres of water per year from Queensland's Gilbert River catchment to irrigate a huge sugar cane plantation.

The Federal Government is supportive of the project, saying it will be an important step towards turning northern Australia into a new food bowl.

The prospective developers say they are confident there is enough water to go around.

However, the prawn fishing industry is concerned by the large amount of water the company wants to take out of the Gilbert River system upstream.

The industry is the biggest of several fisheries that could be affected, alongside barramundi and Spanish mackerel.

Austral Fisheries Prawn Division general manger Andy Prendergast says the extraction of water upstream has the potential to completely wipe out the banana prawn stocks in the Gulf of Carpentaria, as has happened in other parts of the country where river flows have been significantly altered by development.

"There's been no consultation and no consideration of the fishing industry, and the reproductive cycle of the banana prawn is highly dependent on the rainfall and how it comes down the rivers," he said.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Listen Duration: 4 minutes 47 seconds 4 m 47 s Prawn producers sound warning on irrigation plan. Download 2.2 MB

"It is of some genuine concern to us that people are going to be playing with the water.

"We realise we don't have exclusivity to it, but there's also evidence of the Ord River system completely removing the common banana out of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf.

"My worst fear is that through the development... this is going to be pushed through for a political agenda that doesn't take into consideration an existing industry that has been functioning with world's best practice for the last 40 years.

"Potentially it could destroy the banana prawn industry if they take away or start releasing water at the wrong time or releasing the wrong type of water into the river systems."

He wants all fisheries to be consulted ahead of any development.

"We know a lot about our fisheries, and we can guide them on what will and won't impact on us," he said.

Queensland campaigner with the Wilderness Society, Karen Touchie, says the development proposal wants to take too much water from the system.

"What IFED is after is two or three times the amount of land that the CSIRO says is available, and what IFED is after is two or three times the amount of water that CSIRO says is available?" she said.

10pc of total flow 'absolutely sustainable'

But IFED chairman Keith De Lacy says the amount of water that the IFED development needs is sustainable.

"We've got to go through a comprehensive environmental impact process, a public process," he said.

"Science will come into play; that will demonstrate that. But we are very confident that the 10 per cent of the total flow that we're asking for is absolutely sustainable and I am absolutely certain that science will bear that out."

He is confident there will be enough for all water users, including the fishing industry downstream.

"We've a hungry world and where Australia is at present... so much water is running into the Gulf of Carpentaria - more than is needed for ecological sustainability," he said.

"We recognise everybody else's needs: the fishermen, other users, everybody in the system.

"But we believe the way we're doing it, there's enough there for everyone."

Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce says he is supportive of the project.

The Queensland Government says the proposal is subject to an environmental impact statement and the potential environmental social and economic impacts of the proposal will be rigorously examined.