USDA Looks At Irrigation Ag Nationwide

Some of the numbers from USDA's latest look at irrigation and water management within agriculture. 

“There were 212,714 farms and they irrigated 53 million acres.  It was down a little bit from 2018, where the survey showed that there were 231,000 farms with close to 56 million irrigated acres, so down 8% in total, farms irrigating and about 5% for acres irrigated,” noted Julie Weber with NASS.  She shared the results from the 2023 irrigation at Water Management Survey, which is an expansion of data collected within the 2022 census of agriculture. 

“This is the 10th survey in its series, just completely devoted to collecting irrigation and water management data.  The survey goes into not just number of farms irrigating and irrigated acres, but we look at the volume of water used, and the sources and all the expenses tied to irrigation.” 

Some additional categories and findings of focus within the survey. 

“Our top five states accounted for half of all the irrigated acres were Arkansas, California, Idaho, Nebraska and Texas,” Weber noted. 

Among the leading irrigation oriented expenditures for Ag producers. Equipment total expense of $3 billion in 2023. 

“When expenses tied to irrigation include energy costs for pumping infrastructure improvements, land improvements, computer technology,” she said. 

While a look at irrigation by crop type shows. 

“The largest portion of irrigated farmland in the US was definitely dedicated to cropland. That includes grains and oil, seeds, vegetables and nursery, and greenhouse and hay crops. Horticulture under protection, they irrigated close to 2 billion square feet in 2023.” 

Additional details can be found on NASS’ Website. 

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