Irrigation In US Moving Steadily East; Area Irrigated Up 4% Since 2012; GA, MO, MI, MN, MS, More
Irrigated farmland in the United States climbed to a record-high 58 million acres in 2017, according to new federal government data. It represents a 4 percent increase from 2012. More striking than the increase itself, said Steve Evett, a U.S. Department of Agriculture soil scientist, is where much of that growth occurred.
Irrigation, originally the domain of arid regions west of the 100th meridian, is steadily being adopted in the humid eastern states. Farmers — and their bankers — in the Mississippi delta, Corn Belt, southern Georgia, and elsewhere view the capacity to supplement increasingly erratic rainfall with water pumped from underground or from canals as an essential feature of the 21st-century business model.
Irrigated acreage increased in every state in the Midwest and in most southern states, as well. The data were part of the USDA’s Census of Agriculture, which is published every five years. The department’s statistical service released the 2017 update on April 11. Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, and Minnesota registered significant increases in irrigated land. At the same time, the amount of farmland given supplemental water decreased in several traditional powerhouses of irrigation: California, Kansas, and Texas.
The shift in irrigation patterns “tells a story about economic pressures,” Evett told Circle of Blue. But the shift is also about changes in urban development, growing seasons, precipitation, temperature, and the competition for water. “I could also step out there and say that it tells a story about climate change,” he added.
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https://www.circleofblue.org/2019/world/u-s-irrigation-continues-steady-eastward-expansion/