What is in this article?:
- Irrigation is theme of Alabama water management symposium
- Falling behind neighboring states
• With adequate levels of irrigation adoption, there is no reason why Alabama could not compete favorably with the regions of the country most prized for row-crop output — the West and Midwest.
Falling behind neighboring states
Following a decade-long, comprehensive investigation into this issue, a team of researchers representing several Alabama universities concluded that the agricultural sector’s failure to make full use of its rainfall and irrigation potential accounts in large measure for its loss of competitiveness in row-crop production compared with neighboring southern states.
“While Alabama has fewer than 120,000 acres of row crop irrigation, the neighboring states of Georgia and Mississippi each have well over a million acres under irrigation,” Fowler says.
With adequate levels of irrigation adoption, there is no reason why Alabama could not compete favorably with the regions of the country most prized for row-crop output — the West and Midwest, he says.
The symposium is sponsored by the Flint River Conservation Association, the Coalition for a Green Huntsville, Auburn University’s Water Resources Center, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, the Alabama Chapter Sierra Club, and the Huntsville Canoe Club.
The symposium is free. Lunch will be served and refreshments will be available during the breaks. To learn more about the symposium and to register, visit: http://www.alabamarivers.org/events/alabama-water-policy-symposia/huntsville-water-policy-symposium.
More from Southeast Farm Press