James Adkins and Agriculture Irrigation

Last week our class had the opportunity to listen to James Adkins from the University of Delaware who gave a guest lecture on different aspects of the irrigation industry. James gave a very informational lecture with lots of facts that the average person or even farmer would not know. For instance I surely did not know that 20% of the World’s farmland is irrigated and that it produces 40% of the World’s food supply. I also did not know the overall history and how many advances in the technology of irrigation over the years. Living on the delmarva I was familiar with center pivot irrigation but I did not know about the overall variety of the different irrigation systems around the World. I also learned that Asia has the most irrigation in the World and that specifically India uses 90% of their freshwater for irrigation alone. Then looking at the United States I found it very interesting to learn that in the midwest they are extracting more water from reservoirs then can be replaced, which is going to be a huge problem in the future. Overall I found this presentation very eye-opening to a part of agriculture I did not know before.

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