OPPONENTS of the north-south pipeline have accused the Northern Victorian Irrigators' leadership of stacking its membership with supporters of the project.

NVI member Martin Vandersluys, who also belongs to the anti-pipeline group Plug The Pipe, said 40 new NVI members were listed as having the same address as Rob Bryant, NVI president Dudley Bryant's brother.

Membership lists seen by The Weekly Times show most of the 40 became members on November 15 last year.

However, Dudley Bryant denied the claims, saying every member had paid their $20 and the executive had done nothing illegal.

In the lead-up to NVI's annual general meeting next Monday, Mr Vandersluys, who is running for vice-president, said he thought the 40 people were backpackers or fruit pickers and not irrigators.

"There are no rules about itinerant pickers not being allowed membership, but it's not in the spirit of the organisation, which is supposed to represent irrigators," Mr Vandersluys said.

However, Mr Bryant said the membership was open to anyone "just like Plug the Pipe".

He said there were 40 at the one address because "all the mail goes to that address."

There are 331 names on the current membership list.

Mr Bryant said any claims of stacking by Plug the Pipe were hypocritical, as it had tried to get members on to the NVI executive at the last annual general meeting by signing up 10 new members at the meeting.

He said he had noticed Plug the Pipe members joining NVI, a few at a time, each month during the past year.

Mr Vandersluys is running for the executive with Tongala irrigator Peter Costello and other members of Plug The Pipe.

However, Mr Vandersluys said they were not running on a Plug The Pipe platform. "We're running to better represent irrigators," he said.

Mr Bryant said while it would not be the end of the world if he lost the top job, there was still work to be done with upgrading the irrigation region through the Food Bowl Modernisation Project.

"We've got good contacts with Food Bowl and need to be involved," he said.

Mr Bryant said there were members of NVI who were against the Food Bowl Modernisation Project and the north-south pipeline and others who supported it.

The struggle for influence within Northern Victorian Irrigators follows Premier John Brumby'S comments in 2007 that NVI represented irrigators more than the Victorian Farmers Federation.

The VFF, which counts about 5800 irrigators among its members, was angered by the comments.