FUTURE
That’s because deep-pocketed corporations can buy permits to drill for groundwater, something working-class Buckeye farmers can’t afford. Still, they farm the thirsty crop at a disadvantage, which consumes 4 to 6 acre-feet of water each year, enough to cover a football field with nearly 4 feet of standing water. Wood’s great-grandparents were heading toward the California gold rush when their mule died in Buckeye. They decided to stay, trying their hand at cattle ranching before settling on alfalfa. Alfalfa, despite its low cash value, makes sense in Buckeye for many reasons, according to Bales, Kenny and Wood. They said it can grow 12 months out of the year, has excellent irrigation efficiency and is a high-demand product. In the Midwest, alfalfa farmers may get three or four harvests per year, while farms like theirs can see 10 harvests with each yielding a ton of hay per acre. A study conducted by Porter at ASU found forage crops were the top choice for farmers in Maricopa County, although there is another important reason to choose them over produce,
Developers can avoid this red tape if the Arizona Department of Water Resources considers their city a designated water supplier — like how Scottsdale can afford to keep its 200-plus golf courses lush year-round — but Buckeye and Queen Creek are the only Arizona cities that lack the designation because of a reliance on groundwater. Thus, a standing Hobbs memorandum first ordered last year on assured water supply certificates has “the unintended consequence of perpetuating the most unsustainable use of water supply,” Porter said. The city has been gunning to become a designated water supplier since at least 2010, if not longer, said Mayor Orsborn. He is in negotiations with state leaders to achieve the coveted designation and scored a win June 19 when Hobbs signed SB 1181 into law, which allows the city of Buckeye to pay the groundwater replenishment fees on behalf of housing developers. That, two weeks after this Washington Post headline: “Phoenix area can’t meet groundwater demands over next century.” What came as a win for Orsborn was a loss for farmers. The Arizona Farm Bureau stepped away from Hobbs’ Water Policy Council in protest in October. “While we respect the efforts made by Governor Katie Hobbs’ administration to address pressing issues related to rural groundwater,” said Arizona Farm Bureau President Stefanie Smallhouse, “we believe the current process in place has been deaf to the concerns and priorities of Arizona’s farm and ranch families and we must withdraw from it entirely.” Sandy Bahr, director of Sierra Club’s local chapter and a former Arizona chief of water, similarly said Hobbs gave developers outsized control over Buckeye’s water. “Rather than tightening up the Groundwater Management Act, which is sorely needed, they poke more holes in it,” Bahr said. My grandfather used to say that once in your life you need a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman and a preacher. But every day, three times a day, you need a farmer. BRENDA SCHOEPP Arizona agriculture is a $23.3 billion industry, according to Smallhouse. That’s just over 5% of the state’s $434 billion GDP. That may sound insignificant, but a $ 1.4 billion state deficit this year led to sweeping budget cuts, eliminating water system upgrades,
garbage littered among his crops, something with which rural farmers don’t contend. “He understands that food safety rules and inspections are rigorous,” Porter said. “Farmers are rationally deciding to grow crops that aren’t subject to that kind of burden.” Buckeye farmers trade that burden for others. Like Bales, whose new $50,000 water truck was saturating the ground at the front of his farm when reporters arrived that early September morning — a needed investment when the Maricopa County Air Quality Department handed him a blowing dust citation in violation of the ill-famed Rule 310. Or when the 1-mile daily commute to work from his farmhouse turned into an 8-mile detour for seven months when the county decided to work at the intersection of Verrado Way and MC 85, giving the farmer no advanced notice. He keeps adapting. And he will keep adapting until he can’t anymore. What is legacy? It’s planting seeds in the garden you won’t get to see. LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA
“ move the farm out to a different location or sell the land and … move onto other things. MAYOR ERIC ORSBORN and it’s tied to urbanization. “You can’t really grow food crops safely near large metro areas because of all the risks of contamination to your crops,” Porter said. “So, they grow forage crops and fiber. It’s really just safer.” One Buckeye farmer said it’s common to find As we grow, we have farmers that are ready to sell the land and maybe
Alfalfa farmer Steven Bales drives his white pickup truck down a dirt road adjacent to the Buckeye Canal on his Beloat Road farm at 7 a.m. Sept. 23.
just half a percent of its farm receipts, according to USDA and Farm Bureau calculations. An acre of farmland in Arizona has an average tax value per acre of $4,080, compared to north of $2.5 million for an average Phoenix shopping mall. Although Arizona leads the U.S. in daily milk production per head, it has only one- tenth of the total production of California, for example. Alfalfa, a nutritious legume for livestock, and its hay, like what Bales cultivates, are far-and-away the most valuable agriculture products in Arizona. According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, the alfalfa produced in Arizona last year was worth $1.4 billion. That’s despite it also being the least valuable crop per acre, according to Craig Chase, a retired specialist at Iowa State University’s ag extension. He said an acre of alfalfa is worth about $480 per year, while the hay from that acre adds another $200. Compare that to strawberries at $12,000 per acre or mixed vegetables, $10,000 per acre when sold to grocers and $22,000 direct-to-consumer. But there’s a method to the madness. “The Buckeye Valley grows some of the finest alfalfa in the world,” Bales said. “It’s known. That’s why you see these foreign buyers over here.” An uproar emerged last year around Saudi Arabian-owned Fondomonte growing and exporting alfalfa west of Phoenix while also taking advantage of unfettered access to groundwater amid the historic megadrought.
delaying highway construction and slashing resources for public schools and colleges. Imagine, now, if it was 16 times worse. “Let’s say agriculture isn’t providing much value to us. Let’s just wipe it off the ledger,” Kenny postulated. “What’s misunderstood is that none of the other 94-plus percent of the economy even exists if you don’t have food.” The question is whether new development built on top of farmland could be more lucrative, assuming we could get our food elsewhere. Maybe even a futuristic kind of farming, although not one of nutritional sustenance. One recent example epitomizes this ag-urban confluence. A Denver-based startup called Tract in August announced a 2,100-acre, AI-powered data center that would be one of the largest in the country. The facility, which would require 1.8 gigawatts of power — Bales’ 1,000-acre farm requires 186 kilowatts, estimates food science professor Celemens Fuchs —is proposed on existing farmland south of I-10 on Johnson Road in southwest Buckeye. Buckeye City Council greenlit the data farm Aug. 6 as part of its 2,807-acre tech corridor that will save two-thirds of the water used on that land today. Porter called this the early stages of a “data rush” in the city that will see farms replaced with tech ventures that are more lucrative and use less water. It’s simply a better use of the land, city officials concluded. Arizona, with 3% of the nation’s land, yields
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