Farmers Using Less Water to Irrigate

The 2018 Irrigation and Water Management Survey results were released this week.  According to NASS, Nationwide, 231,474 farms irrigated 55,938,795 acres.  By way of comparison, the 2013 survey showed there were 229,230 farms that irrigated 55,319,417 acres.  The results show that even though the number of farms irrigating, and the amount of land increased slightly over those five years, the total amount of water used to irrigate land actually declined.

The survey also shows that more acres are irrigated with sprinkler systems than with gravity irrigation.

Here in the Northwest, 11,259 farms in Washington accounted for 1,866,110 irrigated acres.  In Oregon, 13,794 farms irrigated 1,579,108 acres  Meanwhile in Idaho, 14,867 farms irrigated 3,393,063 acres.

Visit NASS' Website to check out the entire report.

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