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Podcast: Digging deeper on pecans, farming and El Paso’s water future [1]
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Date: 2025-08-13
Diego Mendoza-Moyers: Today, we’re talking pecans, farming and the future of El Paso’s water resources.
If you count El Paso and Doña Ana counties together, this region of West Texas and Southern New Mexico produces about a third of all U.S.-grown pecans.
Depending on the year, either the United States or Mexico is the biggest producer of pecans in the world, so the El Paso region is among the most prolific pecan-producing areas on Earth.
In the outlying communities that surround El Paso, farming pecans – and to a lesser extent cotton and alfalfa – has become a way of life since agriculture expanded here about 100 years ago. That’s when engineers built Elephant Butte reservoir and brought the Rio Grande’s flows under human control.
The Rio Grande immediately south of Elephant Butte Dam, May 30, 2025. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
But the lush orchards that span from the Mesilla Valley through the Lower Valley are surrounded by a vast desert expanse, which begs a question: how much water do these trees consume? And is maintaining orchards here unsustainable, or a threat to El Paso’s drinking water supply?
If you ask some people, the answer to that last question is, “yes.”
Alex Mayer: I think it’s time that we really sit down and consider what to do in the next several decades to help farmers convert to something different.
Diego Mendoza-Moyers: That was Alex Mayer, a professor at the University of Texas (at) El Paso who leads the Center for Environmental Resource Management.
He says climate change is leading to less water accumulating in Elephant Butte, where it’s released into the Rio Grande for farmers downstream to draw from for irrigation, and for El Paso Water to draw and treat for drinking water.
Less river water means residents in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, as well as farmers, rely more on the two groundwater aquifers in our region – the Mesilla Bolson and Hueco Bolson – which Mayer said are being over-pumped. Maybe farmers should try growing more drought-tolerant crops like pomegranates or quinoa, he said.
Meanwhile, El Paso Water, the city-owned utility, is expanding its water desalination plant to treat salty groundwater, and it’s also building a new water treatment plant that will convert sewage into drinking water – which doesn’t sound great, but it’s likely a lot of other cities will soon build similar treatment plants to stretch their water resources.
The result, though, is that El Pasoans’ water bills will continue to rise as the utility spends to build new treatment technologies so it can shift away from relying on the Rio Grande for water and eventually – decades from now – pipe in water from Dell City 90 miles away.
At the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Desalination Plant, rows of reverse osmosis membranes, layered in tubes, filter brackish water into concentrate and permeate, creating as much as 27.5 million gallons of potable water each day. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
Diego: If you’re just talking optimal use of water and the long-term sustainability of our city here, would you say, “Look, maybe all of this used for irrigation really isn’t the most optimal use and we should stop that?”
Alex: I think so. I mean, again, El Paso Water has demonstrated that they can diversify, right, and go for supplies that are farther and farther away. But there’s a consequence to that. That’s the cost to consumers.
But if you talk to other researchers, they’ll tell you there’s a path ahead where agriculture – and especially pecan-growing – can continue here without over-taxing our water resources even as El Paso’s water demand grows. Farmers are trying to implement new ways to be water efficient, and researchers are trying to help agriculture sustain here, in part, to preserve the culture of growing that exists in the mostly Spanish-speaking farm communities around El Paso.
In just a moment, we’ll be joined by Orlando Flores, who works as the county extension agent for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. Researchers with AgriLife test out methods in the lab to help farmers weather drought or try out new techniques on the farm, and then Orlando and others communicate the research to farmers. But I’ll let Orlando – who also farms about 100 acres near Fabens – explain more about his role. And we’ll also talk a bit about the history of farming in our area, and why El Pasoans should care about whether farmers in our region can sustain into the future.
And before we go on, I want to mention that this El Paso Matters Podcast episode is sponsored by Tawney, Acosta and Chaparro, truck crash and injury attorneys. Their team of local, seasoned trial attorneys are ready to help if you’ve been injured in a crash.
Orlando, thanks for joining me.
Orlando Flores: Happy to be here.
Diego: So, can you just explain to us the role of the county extension agent and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension overall here in El Paso?
Orlando: OK, so Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service here in El Paso County is exactly that – it’s the extension of the university to the people, in this case, farmers, because I work with farmers because I’m the county extension agent in agriculture.
So, it’s just that – our role, we’re educators. What we do is we do a lot of informal, or non-formal education. In other words, we can teach under a tree, basically, if we need to. We need to reach farmers on the farm, as well as teaching in classroom settings and things like that. But, yeah, that’s just a little bit of what we do. But we are educators. We’re considered teachers.
Diego: And you all have the research center here, right? And, so, you kind of have some of the academics and researchers doing scientific studies and analysis, and then you sort of take the information they create and share that with farmers about maybe practices to change on their farm or to adopt?
Orlando: Yes, that is correct. So, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension and Texas AgriLife Research are two different entities. But, we’re like brothers or sisters, as they say. And, so, what they do, the research center is – and there’s research centers throughout the state of Texas – they do agricultural research, they do water research, nutritional research and things.
But, since we’re talking about agriculture, what they do is they – what I feed off of is you’ll get people that do research on certain crops. In this case, we’re talking about pecans. So, there’s some research being done. And once that research is published and overlooked by, I guess, the big shots up on top, the different researchers throughout the country. Then, once it’s published and it comes into our hands, and that’s what we do is we – our mission is to give out research-based information.
And, so, that’s how we’re able to get the education to the farmer. And that’s very important because a lot of times you may have opinions. I’ll say, “Well, I think your pecans are doing this because of that and this and that” or whatever. But the reality is, our mission – our charge – is to provide research-based information. So, we’ve got to make sure that we’re giving them what has been, where the research has been done. And indeed is going to help them out one way or another, you know.
Diego: Yeah. So, I’m curious if you can talk about the size and scale of the pecan industry in El Paso and just sort of how important – or how would you describe the importance of the pecan orchards in our region?
Orlando: OK, so in El Paso, we’re right around, I think it’s something between 15,000 to 17,000 acres of pecans. Now, that being said, we know that there’s about 15,000 in production. So, we’re figuring – and it’s not an exact number – but we think it’s pretty close to 17,000.
There’s a lot of young trees. People have put in young trees over the years, and, so, they’re not fully producing at this point. But, some of them are, they might give out a little handful of nuts here and there. So, that’s why we kind of like to stick to about the 17,000 number.
So, I think you asked, why is this important to El Paso? Well, so, first of all, we’re the largest producers of pecans in the state of Texas. So, we account for, usually, right around 50% of pecans in the state. And Texas, the state tree is a pecan tree. So, I know we’re probably going to go into why El Paso, why is there pecans out here? Because they’re native to, like, Central Texas, San Antonio, Austin, just areas in that Central Texas area. But, I can tell you the reason why we have pecans here.
So, I’m a graduate from New Mexico State University. There was a gentleman by the name of Fabian Garcia. He was the first dean of agriculture for New Mexico State. And he was talking, I think, late 1800s, early 1900s, whenever they came around. He was from Chihuahua. And, so, if you’re familiar with Chihuahua, pecans are native there as well. So, that’s a huge, huge industry as well. I’m trying to think of, like, the towns down there, like Chihuahua, Jimenez. Man, there’s one that sticks to my – I just can’t think of it. But, anyway, there’s a lot of pecan production down there.
So, what he did was he brought, we figure he brought pecans up here, and they started growing them, and he started working with pecans. He also is the father of chile. He’s responsible for the New Mexico – I think it was called number nine, the first chile – the chile pods where he developed the different chile pods, or he made them better. And, so, he did a lot of work in chile as well.
But, on the pecan side, there’s always been a migration between the El Paso valley and Chihuahua, even hundreds of years ago, all the way up into Santa Fe because it was part of the Spanish Camino Real. So, there’s always been that migration. So, pecans have been coming up from Chihuahua for many years. So that’s why I feel like they’re here in El Paso County. But, we all know we can trace it to what Fabian Garcia was doing at New Mexico State.
Diego: Yeah, I appreciate that little history lesson there. How do you think about the economic importance of the orchards here and kind of the – it’s the biggest crop we grow here in El Paso County, right?
Orlando: Yes, that is correct. So, we’ve got – well, it’s important for many reasons. I mean, it’s nice to be number one in the state, of course, but that’s not the reason we do it. They just do really well here in El Paso, so that’s always a good thing. Again, like I said, we’re the largest producers.
But economics, I mean, it’s good for the valley. When you’ve got farms like this, you’ve also got labor. So, you’ve got people that you’re paying. You’ve got a lot of the pecan industry. Also, you’ve got trucks, you’ve got the actual labor that the people that are driving the machines, because you’re dealing with pecan shakers, sweepers, they sweep it in and then they harvest it and that kind of stuff.
So, you’ve got a lot of people that are employed, which is always a good thing. And then the industry. You’ve got some smaller pecan orchards and farms that’ll sell locally, and that’s, that’s also something that seems to be taking off a lot more, as you see a lot of, a lot of the smaller farmers going into pecans. But El Paso is the hub for pecans in the United States. There’s even – I think it’s South Georgia Pecan Company in El Paso.
I mean, there’s a lot of people that are bringing nuts into El Paso because the thing is, we’re not a quarantine county. And I can get into that here in a while if you remind me. But the thing is that pecans, Mexico buys a lot of pecans. A lot of stuff is going to Juárez. So, you got shelling plants in Juárez and you’ve got the different plants here in El Paso and Juárez. You’ve got cold storage.
Stuff’s coming in here from all over the place. And they have to follow – there’s regulations and things they need to follow to get it to El Paso because we are not quarantined.
So, that being said, it’s become part of the fabric of El Paso. It’s not just the valleys, Upper Valley and Lower Valley. Now, it’s a big business in town. So, you’ve got these warehouses right off I-10 here on the Eastside that are cold storage facilities, and they’re shipping pecans and doing that kind of stuff. So, it’s big for El Paso.
Diego: Yeah, there’s a whole system of logistics and so forth around it. And then, if you loop in Doña Ana County, there’s a big increase in the – or, we produce a big chunk of the nation’s pecans, both counties together. So, I see what you mean about it being a big hub.
I guess I’m curious, we’re here in the desert, right? And I think you’ll pass through on I-10, and then you just kind of see this band of lush orchards, right, growing in the middle of this desert. And so I wonder what is it about El Paso that makes pecans or – it’s a good climate for them, right? Or what is it about El Paso’s weather that makes it good for growing pecans?
Orlando: Well, I think, first of all, we’ve got a long growing season. And I think our elevation has a lot to do with it as well. We were known for many years prior to pecans. We were one of the largest producers of Pima cotton in the world at one point. But then California got into the game and the San Joaquin Valley took it because, I really don’t know how many acres because it was kind of regional.
It was El Paso, Hudspeth County and then Doña Ana County in Las Cruces. So, it was regional, so we had – say we had, I don’t know, 50,000, 60,000, 70,000, 80,000 acres of Pima cotton at one point – and that’s not an exact number, I’m just kind of throwing a number out there – but that’s what we were because we were at a really good – our elevation was conducive to growing Pima cotton.
So, I think on the same page, I think it’s just kind of the same with pecans. Pecans need a good, nice growing season, but they also need a freeze. And so, of course, we get freezes here, so that’s why they do so good here and up in Las Cruces and the Mesilla Valley and Southern New Mexico, for that matter.
I can tell you that, between El Paso County and the Mesilla Valley or Southern New Mexico, I would say if you were to put them together, we’re probably the largest producers in the world. It’s a lot of acres and a lot of production. Production is actually very good here.
Now, I can go a little more technical. The Lower Valley and the Upper Valley, two different animals. Very different. The Upper Valley, they’re blessed. And a lot of my farmer buddies up there are like, “We’ve got the same problems you do.” But, see, their soils are a little bit different.
First of all, they don’t have the clay that the Lower Valley does. That’s one. But, more importantly, they have good water. They have good well water, underground water. They’re part of the Mesilla Bolson. And, so, we’re the Hueco Bolson. It’s different. Our water is very brackish in the Lower Valley as compared to up there. So, those guys, if there’s a water shortage – which, I know we’re going to talk about that – they can put in a well or they’ve got existing wells and their trees are going to be fine.
In the Lower Valley, you put in a well, nine times out of 10 – it’s just the way it is – you’re going to hit the brackish water. I’ve done testing, years ago, some of the wells in the Upper Valley versus the Lower Valley. And some of those wells were 300 parts per million, 400 parts per million, things like that.
A well that draws water from 130 to 160 feet below the surface supplements the surface water that irrigates 600 acres of pecan trees on the Ivey farm, July 9, 2025. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
Diego: Which trees don’t like that level of salt, right?
Orlando: Well, the trees don’t like that. Compared to the Lower Valley – in the Lower Valley, I would say, an average well is 2,500 parts per million. So, that’s where you have an issue, and so the trees don’t like salt.
And then drainage – drainage is also an issue. If you’re not familiar with irrigated valleys, you’ve got canals and laterals and things, and that’s how you get water from one place to another. But you’ve also got drains. So, those are the deeper ones, and that’s where there’ll usually be water in there. But those are drains, and what they’re really draining is the water table. So, most of that water is coming in from the water table. Sometimes it’s some overflow or things like that, but they’re draining the water table. If you didn’t have those drains, it would just be a big old salt bed, because the water just can’t move. It’s got to move, and flood irrigation is good.
I know we’re going to talk about that as well, about just being in the desert. I know you asked that question. Flood irrigation, believe it or not, it’s good in the sense because it leaches salts down. And your soils and your sand are going to filter that. And then it eventually will go into the drain. So, in a way, flood irrigation is necessary because of the type of the brackish water that we have in the Lower Valley.
Diego: Even though some people suggest maybe drip irrigation might be a little more water efficient?
Orlando: Oh, yeah. So, drip irrigation is a lot more efficient. Again, if you’re in the Upper Valley or in the Mesilla Valley, it makes sense because you’ve got good water. It’s almost impossible to do in the Lower Valley. Although there is a farm that just recently converted their whole farm – not a big farm, I believe it’s maybe 50 or 60 acres – but they converted everything into drip irrigation, which is good, and it’s good for cotton and things like that. But you can’t rely on that solely. You’re going to have to flood irrigate. You have to push those salts down because if you’re putting salty water on salty soils and you’ve got no way to leach it down, eventually you’re going to – everything up on top is going to die because you’re just not getting the water penetration.
Diego: Yeah, and I want to talk about some of the water issues here in a minute. But I just wanted to pose this question to you: why should the average El Pasoan or somebody from the Southwest care about agriculture in general and sort of want agriculture to thrive here?
Orlando: Well, I think – so the valley is always, I mean, that was the— I don’t want to say it was the original intent, but, it’s just the valley. We’re blessed to have that. And, so, why is agriculture important? I mean, it’s like two percent of the people in the United States who are involved in production agriculture. So, that’s a very small minority. But we feed the world. We feed the country, and I say “we” because I also have a farm. I mentioned to you earlier that I have a farm as well.
So, that’s just one of— I feel like that’s something to be proud of. We’re definitely the top-producing county of pecans in the state of Texas and Pima cotton. I brought that up earlier, but that’s just something we do. We used to grow a lot of chile in this county at one point. We used to be the largest dairy county in Texas at one point. But we don’t have dairies anymore. So, the crop rotation has gone, unfortunately, because that could lead into other crops.
But it’s just important because there’s a history. There’s a longstanding history of agriculture in this county. I always start when the Spanish explorers came in and set up the procedures and that kind of stuff, the land grant system. But of course, pre-Spanish, the Native American farmers were farming in this valley.
So, it’s just – I don’t know. We’re just very fortunate, and that’s always led me to the argument about housing. People like to talk about, “Well, eventually it’s all going to be city,” and this and that. But, if you look at places like Las Cruces and Albuquerque, housing sits up on the foothills. And they still allow for agriculture to happen in the valley. I think it’s just something to be proud of. And it’s just a lot more appealing to the eye as compared to what you’re seeing in the Lower Valley now.
Diego: And then I was wondering if you can touch on the point you made about quarantine. What did you mean by that?
Orlando: So, most of Texas, most of the pecan production in Texas, they’re quarantined because of the pecan weevil. So is the eastern side of New Mexico. So, the pecan weevil is pretty much everywhere. But, fortunately for us here in El Paso, I think it’s the five western counties in El Paso, which would be like El Paso, Hudspeth, Culberson, maybe Presidio, Jeff Davis, Brewster – well, it’s not Brewster anymore – but anyway, there’s five counties, and we’re fortunate that we don’t have pecan weevil.
Now, pecan weevil is something that we do address and we worry about because it’s something that could devastate pecan farming as we know it. Because, what it does is it’ll hollow out the nuts, and then once you get it, it’s hard to get rid of. And, so, if this thing spreads, well, we’re in trouble.
And, so, you’re talking about – I’ve heard figures of, like, $200 per acre just to control it. So, on top of all the expenses that a farmer has when you talk about expenses, you’re talking about diesel, you’re talking about your equipment, your wear and tear, your labor, and you can go on and on and on. This is another $200 above that. So, that would really, a small farmer, you can forget about it. You’re going to be out of business.
But that’s something that we take pride in. And we’ve had some scares, I’m not going to lie. I mean, we’ve had some scares and we thought that there was a possibility a few years ago that there might be – we were looking at some nuts because the pecan weevil will leave like a BB hole in a pecan, but it’s perfectly round. So you look at that and then you look at some, there’ll be pecans where birds will get in there. But, of course, it’s not perfectly round.
So there was a little scare there for a while. Like, man, maybe we’ve got this out here. But, so, we became very proactive, and we’ve got a program here in El Paso, and it’s here through extension, but just it’s farmer-driven. And, so, we’re monitoring. We’re monitoring the orchards. We’re monitoring the pecan cleaning plants in the Lower Valley because we want to make sure that we don’t get it.
Diego: Yeah, that’s interesting. That kind of pest control is an important part of your job, too.
So, all right, I want to ask you about now the – we’re seeing a relatively short river season, right? In terms of water being delivered through the Rio Grande from Elephant Butte Reservoir up in New Mexico. I think the river season started right at the beginning of June, and relatively short. I think the historical typical season – and you know this better than me – but it would be March to October, maybe something like that. So, we’re talking maybe a three-month river season at most this year.
Elephant Butte Dam is opened to release water along the Rio Grande, May 30, 2025. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
And, so, I’m just curious, how does that affect growers? And how do people like yourself help farmers get through a season like this?
Orlando: So, yeah, you’re correct. From, like, March to October, that was the norm back in the day, and we were blessed to have four acre-feet per acre. So that always worked out really good. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case anymore. Sometimes we’ll have a good year. Like, last year was a good water year, but we’ve gone right back into a severe drought status.
So, how does that affect farmers? Well it’s going to affect the bottom line. And once again, because if you don’t have a well, you’re going to have to put one in, that’s for sure. And it all depends where you’re at as well. So, the far Lower Valley, there’s certain areas where, fortunately, there’s an agreement between the El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1, which is the irrigation district, and El Paso Water Utilities, or I guess it’d be El Paso Water.
And, so, they had an agreement put together many years ago. And, so, the effluent, the treated sewage, is something that you can rely on. But, there’s not enough to cover the whole valley. It’s just not going to happen. But, it’s like a lot of guys say: “Well, it’s wet. It’s not the best quality water, but it’s wet.” And that’s just the way it is. Sometimes you’re doing that just to survive, basically.
But, if you’ve got hundreds of acres of pecans, you have to have a well. That’s just the way it is.
Diego: And the well, especially in the Lower Valley, is brackish water — not the best water you want to rely on year after year, right?
Orlando: That’s exactly right. Yeah, so, the Lower Valley is blessed in the sense — or, part of the Lower Valley is blessed in the sense that they’ve got access to that effluent water. They’re not blessed in the sense that they have really brackish water as compared to the Upper Valley. And that’s why when people ask “Well, what happened to all the chile production? There was a lot of chile and vegetables and onions and things back in the day. And you’ll still find it in the Upper Valley. But the reason why is because they can just flip the switch and get their well going and water vegetables and, of course, pecans in this case.
But in the Lower Valley, it’s just we don’t have that. We just don’t have it.
Diego: And there are costs associated with having to pump from a well, right? So, if you don’t get water from the river to sustain your crop, you’ve got to invest some money in pumping, right?
Orlando: It’s a lot of money. First of all, just to put in a well – you’ve got to drill if you don’t have an existing well, you’ve got to drill a well. You’ve got to make sure that you’re – that’s a process because you put the pipe in. They’ve got to blow it out. They’ve got to put gravel in there. They’ve got to do this, they’ve got to do that. And then, finally, get some good water. Then you’ve got to get the gear head up on top of the well.
And then you get the engine. If you’re fortunate to be around natural gas, which most areas are not, you can put in a natural gas engine or electricity sometimes with electric – you get an electric motor and do that kind of stuff as well. But more than likely, most of the time it’s going to be a diesel engine, and they’re very expensive.
But, it’s just something you have to do. So, there’s a large expense when it comes to that.
Diego: I interviewed Shannon Ivey in the story that I wrote about this pecan-growing industry. And he said something kind of interesting to me. He’s 45 years old. And he said that on his family’s farm of several hundred acres in the Lower Valley, he had never seen a well used on the farm until he was about 20 or 21.
So, basically in the ’70s, ’80s, he said his dad pulled up the wells and they didn’t need them. And there was plenty of water flowing through the river. And then, at some point, the drought began, right, in I guess the early 2000s or so. And, so, then they had to start relying on well water. So, it was interesting to me there was a certain era where drawing from wells wasn’t really a thing for farmers out here.
Shannon Ivey, a fourth-generation farmer, points out a green pecan husk on one of the trees in his orchard in Tornillo, July 9, 2025. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
Orlando: Yeah. So, the last time — there was wells used in the ’70s, not to the extent or the extreme that we see today. Now, in the ’50s, there was a drought. I think they even call it the drought of 1950. And that’s when it really hit people hard. I can tell you, in personal experience, my grandfather, he sold – we had a family farm that had been in the family for generations and generations. I was explaining to you earlier about (how) some of our families were very deep-rooted into the 1700s, but they had to sell the farm in 1950.
Fortunately, they bought another farm in California, but it’s just one of those things. So the drought, that knocked out a lot of people. And I don’t want to say the strong survived. It’s just people that had some good cash flow coming in because there’s no way you could do it, especially when you kept hitting the salty water that they were getting in the Lower Valley. So, that was really hard on the Lower Valley.
Now the Lower Valley, of course, extends into Hudspeth County. And that valley today, just like Shannon Ivey was saying, 20 years ago or maybe even 25 years ago, that was beautiful. It was lush Pima cotton, alfalfa, whatever. No pecans in Hudspeth County because they don’t have the water rights that El Paso does. But, it was beautiful. Now, it looks like the moon. There’s just nothing out there.
Diego: I wonder if you can touch a little bit about the AgriLife Extension’s role here. And I mean, we’re talking about, alright, so farmers in recent decades have had to rely more on wells, right? And maybe there’s saltier water. And, so, then I know there are related issues where, if you water consistently with salt, the ground gets this kind of crust on top, the water can’t permeate the roots. And, so, there are these issues that come from less river water and having to rely more on groundwater.
But that’s kind of where the research center plays a role. “Hey, how can we try to mitigate the saltier water and sort of allow the – maybe increase the permeability of the soil, or increase whatever it may be to try to allow farmers to sustain with saltier water right?” And I think one example I looked at was cover crops, right? And farmers kind of letting their orchards grow a little bit more wild than maybe in the past.
And, so, I just wonder kind of the role you play there, right? Where “OK, we face this problem, what do the researchers say?” And then you sort of take that knowledge out to the farmers and try to maybe shift the practices in the field, right?
Orlando: Yeah. So, the cover crops definitely, we know that it keeps the soil cool and things like that. There’s just a lot of – I always say we revert to practices that were done 100 years ago. So, there’s just different ways of doing things. And the laws change and all that kind of stuff. But, I know, like, cover crops is going to keep it cooler. So, that being said … if you’re watering every 21 days, maybe you could water every 24 days. It’s just something like that.
Diego: It increases the water efficiency?
Orlando: It does. It does. And you’re not getting the evaporation that you would normally. I think that the cover crop stuff is very important as well.
So, what we do as an extension service here in Texas, I rely a lot on New Mexico State. Now, that’s a different state, which we know. But I was fortunate to graduate from there. I really believe in that university. There’s a lot of good research, a lot of pecan research that makes sense to El Paso County. Texas A&M does a great job of pecan research as well. But Texas A&M is in College Station, so that’s a different farming (area).
Now, we’re fortunate that we have New Mexico State up the road, and we’re fortunate that we have a good relationship with them. I can call the state specialist today, the state pecan specialist, and he’ll be here. He’ll come down here, and his name is Dr. Richard Hereema, I’ll just tell you. And I say, “Hey, Richard, we need some help here. I want to put a program together. Can you come down here?” “Sure. What date? I can’t do it this day” or maybe we can do it the following day.
But these are some of the top pecan people in the Southwest, because our style of farming is southwest style, versus – or compared to, like, College Station, Stephenville, Central Texas. It’s a little bit different. Soils are different. Trees grow really nice out there, but they don’t get the production that we get. So, it’s just one of those things. But we’re fortunate because we get the research from New Mexico State as well. And that’s part of the whole cooperative extension system across the United States.
We have access – just like anybody else does. – we have access to research and extension from California, from Alabama, from Pennsylvania, from Texas, wherever. But fortunately for us, we’re in a really good area and we’ve got a good network. So, we’re able to tap into New Mexico State quite a bit.
Diego: To try to help problems – or help farmers solve these various problems?
Orlando: Exactly. Exactly.
Diego: So, one of the last things here, Orlando. Again, I appreciate all this time.
This is kind of a broad question, but I’m wondering how do you think about the long-term sustainability of pecan farming in our region? Right? Obviously, we’ve touched on the drought, and it’s been pretty consistent where there’s not a lot of water coming out of Elephant Butte, right? Which has to do with the snowfall in Southern Colorado and then at the head of the Rio Grande watershed.
But the point is just that there’s rising heat, farmers are facing maybe less river allocations than in the past. And then we see El Paso Water doing a lot of different things and desalinating water. And I think they’re going to start turning sewage back into drinking water down in the Lower Valley. So, they’re kind of trying to innovate their way out of drought and stuff like that.
But so I wonder, long-term, how do you think about sort of sustaining pecan farming here long into the future? And is that possible?
Orlando: Yeah, well, so I think it’s possible. And the thing is, water rights – water rights law is very important as well. So, if you own the farm, you own the water rights. You can’t really get around that. There’s people that have threatened in the past, “Well, we’re going to have to take the farmer’s water away.” It doesn’t work that way.
The state of Texas, the state of New Mexico, even, has different water right laws, but you can’t do it. You’re not going to take the water away. I think eventually, to me, it seems like the solution would be like, OK – because I know this happens in California, my grandfather’s farm, they could lease their water rights to the city of Los Angeles for whatever, $1,000 an acre, $2,000 an acre. It was a lot of money. They had those options.
We don’t have those options here. Of course, this is a federal project, so there may be some legal issues there of why you can’t do that. I feel like if the city of El Paso is interested in the water rights, as they are, but they’ve also got water rights because they’ve taken up a lot of – there was a lot of agreements with people that would subdivide their farm and say, “OK, well, I’ll turn the water over to PSB or to El Paso Water Utilities.” But that’s just something – it’ll probably, I’m assuming, be a fight, eventually, if they do that.
But this is what I will say. And this is, again, research-based. When you flood irrigate, your water goes back into the water table. In a sense, farmers are recharging the Hueco Bolson and the Mesilla Bolson. I mean, that’s happening, that’s recharge.
If you go down into the valley like where I live in the Fabens area, you hit water at six feet. We have a high water table. Now, here in the city of El Paso … where we’re sitting right now, the water table has dropped because there’s a lot of pumping going on.
But I think a lot of times people look at farmers and say, well, they’re not – I hate to say it that way, but a lot of times people (say), “Well, they’re polluting the soil, they’re polluting the water, they’re spraying.” Believe me, I can tell you this as a county extension agent in agriculture and as a farmer myself, I’m not going to spend money to go spray dangerous chemicals around my house where I live, around where my children play out in the yard. I’m not going to do that. I don’t want to do that to my kids. And it costs money. It costs money.
So, again, that’s just something that I think, maybe I’m getting a little off topic, but the sustainability of agriculture – it can be sustained in El Paso. There’s no doubt about it. There’s no doubt about it.
Farmers have made a lot of hard decisions. I’m sure everybody would like to have pecans, but you can’t put them all in there. Some farmers have thousands and thousands of acres, but it’s just – you have to be prepared for anything. And, so, I think it definitely can be sustained in this county.
I think it’s just education on both sides. I mean, farmers understand that they’ve got to save water as well, because they can’t stay in business and they don’t want to put that well water on their crops unless absolutely necessary. So, that kind of stuff.
So, I think it’s just an education (and) understanding both sides: the urban and the rural sectors of this county.
And, a lot of times, too, it’s taking pride in what we have. I mean, you can’t make this a fight between the urban and the rural people in this county. You take pride in the fact that we do have pecans and that we do have – that we’re the largest producers and that you celebrate that kind of stuff. And I think that’s very important.
But again, it’s just going back to people got to talk and don’t blow your top and (say), “Oh, my God, they’re stealing our water.” Because I’ve heard farmers say that and “the city, they’re going to take all our water” and this and that. And that’s not true. There are just ways to get around these kinds of things. And, so, I think just communication and education is going to solve that problem, hopefully.
Diego: For sure. We’ll go ahead and wrap up there, Orlando. I’ve already taken up more time than I wanted to. But I sure appreciate you taking some time to chat with me and talk agriculture. It’s really interesting.
Orlando: Well, thank you. I really appreciate you coming down and talking to me.
[END]
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