Yes, it's true the month of July has been proclaimed "Smart Irrigation Month."
The concept is to raise awareness of water use during this mid-season, high-demand month. The Irrigation Association designed the message to reach growers and producers and acquaint them with how agriculture uses water efficiently.
As the old saying goes, "a good idea has many fathers and a bad idea is an orphan." This good idea caught the attention of two government agencies, Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency, who embraced it and helped move acceptance along.
According to the Irrigation Association team: "Sugarbeets are a heavily irrigated crop with 96.3 percent of the acreage irrigated. Sprinkler/drip account for 65 percent of the irrigated acreage while gravity maintains a level of 35 percent.
"There is no question that agriculture has a `bull's eye' painted on it where questions of water use are concerned.
"Agriculture applies 81.1 percent of all the water that is used in this country on a daily basis.
"Not all of this water is consumed, some is returned and reused, but agriculture has a big straw in the fresh water supply." Visit the Irrigation Association website for more information at www.irrigation.org.