Irrigation on U.S. farms declined between 2018 and 2023, with fewer farms using irrigation methods and less water applied overall, the latest data shows.
Over that five-year period, the number of irrigated farms dropped by 8%, irrigated acres decreased by 5%, and water use fell from 83.4 million to 81 million acre-feet, according to the 2023 Irrigation and Water Management Survey.
About 213,000 farms irrigated 53.1 million acres in 2023, according to that year’s Irrigation and Water Management Survey. That’s down from 55.9 million acres in 2018.
These findings indicate a decline in the number of farms engaging in irrigation, the total land area irrigated, and the volume of water used for irrigation between 2018 and 2023.
The survey, conducted every five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), builds upon data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture, providing detailed and up-to-date insights into water usage, management practices, and investments in irrigation systems within the agricultural sector.
According to the findings, most irrigated farmland in the United States is dedicated to cropland, including grain and oilseed crops, vegetables, nurseries, greenhouses, and hay crops.
Just five states — Arkansas, California, Idaho, Nebraska, and Texas — accounted for nearly half of all irrigated acres and more than half of the total water applied.
Prolonged droughts are straining the regional water systems’ ability to meet competing irrigation demands, and the irrigation sector has increasingly relied on groundwater due to shortfalls in surface water supply, according to Trends in U.S. Irrigated Agriculture: Increasing Resilience Under Water Supply Scarcity, a 2021 report by the USDA Economic Research Service.
In more humid regions with variable rainfall, irrigation supplements soil moisture and provides a vital buffer against periodic droughts during the crop-growing season, the report stated.
The strain and shift to groundwater usage raises sustainability concerns, as groundwater levels in many significant aquifers supporting irrigated agriculture are declining across the United States.
The post GRAPHIC: Irrigation, water use on US farms are in decline appeared first on Investigate Midwest.