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Conserving Irrigation Energy in the Northeast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

Dallas M. Lea*
Affiliation:
Natural Resource Economics Division, Economic Research Service
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Extract

While there has been some irrigated agriculture in each of the 11 States in the Northeast farm production region for a number of years, irrigation has never been widely practiced in this region. The latest available data indicate that only about 2 percent of the cropland in the Northeast is irrigated, while 12 percent of the cropland in the nation is under irrigation, largely in the more arid West. During the past year, ERS has investigated why supplemental irrigation is not practiced by more farmers in the East. The one example of extensive supplemental irrigation in a humid State is Florida, which contains over half of the irrigated acreage in the 26 States east of the Mississippi River although it has the second highest average annual rainfall in the nation. Although discussed in the last section, the main purpose here is not the potential for expanding supplemental irrigation, but to discuss ways of conserving energy with the irrigation already practiced in the Northeast.

Type
Energy and Transportation Issues in the Northeast
Copyright
Copyright © Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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References

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