The value of Australia's irrigated agricultural production in 2011-12 hit 13.5 billion AU dollars (12. 7 billion US dollars), the highest in more than a decade, thanks to years of solid rains, according to figures released Thursday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

"Consecutive years of good rainfall have seen more water available for agriculture, particularly for pasture, cereals, cotton, sugar cane and rice," Helen Baird from the ABS said. " Cotton, sugar cane and rice also recorded strong increases in gross value over the previous year."

The commodities with the highest value in 2011-12 were cotton, vegetables and fruit and together these three accounted for just over half of Australia's gross value of irrigated agricultural production.

Cotton increased by 35 percent to 2.2 billion (2 billion US dollars) AU dollars but this was partly offset by decreases in the value of vegetables and fruit.

Vegetables fell by 9 percent to 2.6 billion (2.4 billion US dollars) Au dollars and fruit fell by 4 percent to 2.4 billion (2. 25 billion US dollars) AU dollars due to reduced area irrigated for these crops.

"At state levels, the main increases in the area watered were in the eastern states of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland," Baird said.

"New South Wales reported the largest increase in volume of irrigation, up 781,000 megalitres or more than a quarter up from the previous year, with growers of cotton and rice in particular taking advantage of increased water allocations," said Baird.

The total volume of water applied for irrigation was 8.2 million megalitres, 23 percent higher than 2010-11. Around 59 percent of all irrigation water was used to grow three commodities: cotton, pasture for grazing and rice.