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on a research proposal jointly authored with them. 1 In western Kansas, irrigated crops production has given rise to one of the world’s premier livestock production and food processing industries. Given current usage trends, however, portions of the Ogallala Aquifer will become effectively exhausted for irrigated agricultural use in the foreseeable future. Without irrigation, highly productive farmland in western Kansas will begin reverting to dryland farming. This research provides preliminary estimates of how the loss of irrigated agriculture might affect the western Kansas economy. An economic model is used to estimate the overall importance of agriculture in the northwestern, west central and southwestern regions of the state. An analysis provides estimates of the impacts of removing the additional value irrigation adds to crops production. Without irrigation, the economy would shrink by an estimated one-half billion dollars annually and about 1,800 jobs would be lost. Introduction1 Despite a long period of national economic growth and expansion during the 1990s, many rura