Survey data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on April 11 shows that irrigation continues to spread in the Midwest and South.
Irrigated farmland climbed to 58 million acres, a new record. Irrigated acres increased in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and South Carolina, while they decreased in some of the traditional powerhouses of irrigation: California, Kansas, and Texas.
The USDA announced the data was from the 2017 Census of Agriculture. It added it will conduct a survey in 2020 on the number of organizations that supply irrigation water to farmers and ask about conservation policies. The last time the department gathered this information was in 1978.
Read other highlights from the census data.