Irrigation And U.S. Agriculture

Big Picture Agriculture:

This month the USDA came out with a report titled, “Water Conservation in Irrigated Agriculture: Trends and Challenges in the Face of Emerging Demands” by Glenn D. Schaible and Marcel P. Aillery.
What Did the Study Find?
• Based on the 2007 Census of Agriculture, irrigated farms accounted for roughly 40 percent ($118.5 billion) of the value of U.S. agricultural production; nationwide, the average value of production for an irrigated farm was more than three times the average value for a dryland farm.
• Irrigated farms accounted for 54.5 percent ($78.3 billion) of the value of all crop products sold and contributed to the farm value of livestock and poultry production through animal forage and feed production. Livestock/poultry products accounted for roughly a third of market sales for irrigated farms and 63 percent for nonirrigated (dryland) farms.
• Nearly 57 million acres were irrigated across the United States in 2007, or 7.5 percent of all cropland and pastureland. Roughly threequarters of U.S. irrigated agriculture occurred in the 17 Western States, although irrigation has been expanding in the more humid Eastern States.
• Irrigated agriculture across the Western States applied 74 million acre-feet (24 trillion gallons) of water for crop production, with 52 percent originating from surfacewater sources and 48 percent pumped from wells that draw from local and regional aquifers.

There's a lot more interesting stuff over there.   With potential climate change impacts, I can't see how this continues.