During that same six-year span, the USDA paid farmers $521 million to install efficient irrigation systems through its Environmental Quality Incentives Program, one of the agency’s largest conservation initiatives.
But that program doesn’t help farmers use less water since the West has a use-it-or-lose-it policy, said report author Anne Schechinger, an agricultural economist with the Environmental Working Group.
“The money that we all spend on these conservation irrigation practices – kind of wasted money,” she said. “Because we're paying farmers to use more efficient irrigation practices, but then they still have to use their whole water allocation.
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