I have begun my adventure exploring the effects of drought on agriculture in the southwestern U.S. In Gallup, New Mexico, I heard about a dried-up windmill-powered well on the Navajo Nation. The parched well is part of a long-standing family operation, and it has certainly dried up before. What is striking is that this is the second year in a row that it has dried up-- and that this is the rainy season here in New Mexico. The family corn patch that usually supplies much of the family's food will not be producing anything but dried stalks.
In Gallup I also got to hear a little about the local agriculture scene. The town has a CSA (community supported agriculture) of the innovative style that I have seen popping up in a lot of larger cities. A variety of growers are linked through a single CSA coordinator, giving a broader reach to the growers and increasing the fresh veggies available to residents of Gallup. While not all the produce is from Gallup itself, it is all from the local foodshed. What I found most exciting is that some of it is even being grown on urban plots in Gallup itself. Seeing urban farming blossoming in such a small town seems like an encouraging sign of the groundswell of interest in regenerating local agriculture. It will be interesting to see how they will deal with drought. Check out Work in Beauty CSA.
Today I have been spending time in the USDA offices here in Albuquerque. Between talking to Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) folk, Farm Service Agency (FSA) loan providers, the FSA insurance program director and a brief chat with one of the APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) officials, I got quite a lot of sense of how agriculture is bearing up under the current drought in the state. Reservoirs are low, rivers are dry, and farming that depends on wells from the Ogalala aquifer in the eastern part of the state are dealing with ever-deepening wells (the Ogalala aquifer draw-down is probably less directly related to drought, but is affecting farmers in similar ways). Farmers in the southeastern part of the state are being forced to stop growing alfalfa and traditional chiles. With cotton prices high last year, many grew cotton instead. All over the state, many are being forced to fallow fields or to sell off their livestock. USDA staff told me that many people are settling into the idea that the state is becoming more desert-like for the foreseeable future. I am interested to see whether farmers say the same.
All in all, the farming situation here is reminding me a lot of what farmers are dealing with where I have worked in West Africa. While some have a lot more technology and are blessed with more technical know-how, there is often little they can do to stick strictly to their old systems when drought strikes. Also, most are working separate, off-farm jobs to keep their farm life-style alive. The Navajo woman who told me about her well is just one example; she works as a nurse in Gallup. I am left wondering if family farmers will only survive drought by spending a lot of time off the farm.
