The number of irrigating agricultural businesses, how much irrigation water by commodities and where it was sourced for 2019-20 is now available in the interactive report below.
By clicking on the graph or the map, users can customise their analysis to get a profile of all water use, source and number of irrigating businesses for one region or investigate which regions of the state used the most water, what the water was used to produced and where it was sourced.
Number of Irrigators
The Goulburn Broken region had the highest number of irrigating agricultural businesses in 2019-20 (1,179 businesses) representing 36% of all agricultural businesses in the region. In 2019-20, the Mallee region had the highest proportion of irrigating agricultural businesses (40%)
Water Use
Pasture for grazing used the most irrigation water (544,845 megalitres) in 2019-20, with largest volumes applied to pasture in the Goulburn Broken (180,783 megalitres), North Central (152,120 megalitres) and West Gippsland (120,456 megalitres) regions.
The Mallee region used the most irrigation water in 2019-20 (434,021 megalitres). Fruit and nut trees and berry fruits (334,689 megalitres), grapevines (78,040 megalitres) and vegetables (14,824 megalitres) were the commodities the used the most irrigation water in the region.
Water Source
Irrigation channels or pipelines delivered the most irrigation water (803,093 megalitres) in 2019-20. The Mallee (264,916 megalitres), Goulburn Broken (205,690 megalitres) and North Central (199,674 megalitres) regions sourced the largest volumes from irrigation channels or pipelines in 2019-20.
Following channels or pipelines, the next largest sources of irrigation water were direct from rivers, creeks and lakes (274,354 megalitres) and groundwater (265,862 megalitres).
Data was sourced from the latest data release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
For more information please contact:
Sam Henty
Farm Business Economist
Agriculture Victoria
