Results available on 2008 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey
Washington Ag Today December 3, 2009 Do you have any idea of how many acres in Washington state are irrigated by pivot systems or by drip irrigation. How about how much farmers and ranchers spend on irrigation equipment. You can find the answers to such questions in the 2008 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey just released by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service or NASS. The survey conducted every five years is a supplement to the census of agriculture and provides details by state, on acres and yield of irrigated crops, quantity of water applied, methods of water application, irrigation expenditures and other data. NASS Deputy Administrator Carol House highlights some of the findings from the new survey. House: “There is more sprinkler systems being used and less of the gravity based systems. When producers are putting in new irrigation systems, and a number of them reported that, it is almost always to improve the energy efficiency of the systems they have or improve the use of the water. So whenever a new system is going in you are getting both energy savings and also water savings.” You can find the survey information online at www.nass.usda.gov In 2008, for the first time ever NASS included all horticultural specialty farms in the survey. The irrigation information for these operations will be published separately and will become available at on Feb. 11, 2010. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
