USDA Farm And Ranch Irrigation Survey Released

By Growing Produce Staff|February 24, 2015

USDA Census of Agriculture recently released the 2013 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey. The study is the primary source of data on agriculture irrigation and water use and reports on water sources, amount of water used, acres irrigated by system type, yield and other trends at the state and national level. It is published once every five years.

Highlights include:

The total number of irrigated acres in the United States decreased from 55,540,978 in 2008 to 55,319,417 in 2013, a decline of less than 1%.
In 2013, the five states with the most irrigation were: Nebraska with 8,297,560 irrigated acres; California with 7,549,161 irrigated acres; Arkansas with 4,950,053 irrigated acres; Texas with 4,491,987 irrigated acres; and Idaho with 3,511,839 irrigated acres.
The amount of water applied for irrigation decreased by 3.7% between 2008 and 2013. Estimated water use fell from almost 100 million acre-feet (1.7 average acre-feet/acre) to over 88 million acre-feet (1.6 average acre-feet/acre).
The top barriers preventing farmers from investing in more efficient irrigation to reduce energy use or conserve water in 2013 included: Investigating improvements is not a priority; inability to finance improvements; improvements will not reduce costs enough to cover installation investment; and uncertainty about future availability of water.

View the complete survey at AgCensus.USDA.gov.

Source: Irrigation Association