Agriculture and food processing have direct, indirect, and induced effects on the economy in Southeastern New Mexico.
In our neck of the woods, the ag industry is ranked second to the oil and gas industries for economic impact. Total ag employment of 3,015 individuals creates a total economic impact of $6.63 billion, according to New Mexico State University’s College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental
Sciences website.1
The triumphs and frustrations of the ag industry touch close to home at the Joy Farm east of Artesia.
Stuart Joy is a fourth-generation farmer. He and his father, Jack, farm over 800 acres of alfalfa and cotton, in addition to their seasonal pumpkin patch Heirloom Acres. Joy’s grandparents originally bought the land from his grandfather’s brother when his grandparents first married. The operation was smaller and more diverse with different livestock in those days. After the land passed to Jack, it was farmed by him, his brother, and five full-time hired hands. Fast forward to today and Jack has only one hired hand plus Stuart working with him part-time.
“Technological advances have decreased manual labor needs a lot,” said Stuart Joy. “We can operate the irrigation and equipment with much less manpower. The introduction of biotechnology that controls pests has greatly reduced labor. It’s not all like when I was a kid and we worked in the fields hoeing weeds.”
The economic challenge of farming in 2022 is real. “Fertilizer and diesel costs have doubled in the last year,” said Joy. “With those increasing costs and better transportation and globalization we are forced to be more efficient. So, we are thinking about how we decrease trips to the field and fertilizer consumption and remain profitable.”
Big changes to tilling practices are a trend Joy has seen in the last 20 years. “Our industry is doing more reduced tillage practices, which has different challenges when you don’t have much rainfall. We are looking at ways to cut down field passes, cut diesel costs, and reduced inputs, too.”
Another trend is soil management and the use of biological amendments, as well as trying to reduce emissions from engines on the farm, according to Joy.
With the advance of the internet and social media, selling direct from the farm to the consumer has become easier. Joy explains, “It has really opened more opportunities than we had 20 or 30 years ago. This may cause a shift back to more diversifications, especially for small operations.”
Southeastern New Mexico has a very valuable asset – water. “Because of a lot of hard work and sacrifice in the 1970s we have balanced aquifers,” said Joy. “We have secure water rights because we don’t take more than what is recharged. Because of the dry climate and good irrigation source there’s no such thing as a drought for us. We can produce high quality hay because it can get dried out during harvest and baled without getting rained on. Alfalfa is the #1 cash crop in New Mexico and it’s pretty unique in that sense.”
The Joy farm sells their alfalfa to local dairies and cow/calf operations as far away as central Texas.
On a statewide scale 135,000 acres of alfalfa were in production in New Mexico in 2021, which is estimated to have produced 689,000 tons, according to the New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Service and Agricultural Experiment Station.2
Like the Joy farm, the main cash crop of Horner Farms in Artesia is alfalfa. The Horner Farms operates over four thousand acres, according to their website. They also farm upland cotton, Pima cotton, and pinto beans.
Horner Farms sell their pinto beans to wholesale distributors, grocery stores, and directly to consumers. Pinto beans are used in many native and cultural dishes in this area, keeping them in high demand.
According to the New Mexico Department of Agriculture the 2020 dry bean production was 1,850 pounds per acre on 7,200 acres with a value of $5,852,000.3
No discussion of agriculture in Southeastern New Mexico would be complete without pecans.
New Mexico continues to be among the nation’s leader in pecan production, producing 29% of America’s total production according to the 2015 USDA National Agricultural Statistics. The New Mexico Department of Agriculture’s latest figures – from the year 2020 – show that the state’s pecan production totaled more than 78 million pounds, which was second only to Georgia, which produced 145 million pounds.
A large pecan producer in Southeast New Mexico is Chase Farms in Artesia. Chase Farms includes 1,600 acres of pecan trees in the Artesia area and another 1,000 acres of orchards near Roswell, according to their website. They ship their pecans to their processing plant in San Saba, Texas.
With over 1,000 farms in Eddy and Lea Counties, with an average farm size of over 2,000 acres, and 4,300 acres respectively, add in nearly 600 farms in Chaves County with an average size of 3,000 acres4… the economic impact is massive and felt directly and indirectly by all residents. Southeastern New Mexico’s hard-working farmers grow important commodities that feed the area, the state, the nation, and the world.
Sources
- https://pubs.nmsu.edu/_circulars/CR675/#:~:text=Agricultural%20production’s%20total%20impact4,5.7%25%20to%20New%20Mexico’s%20GDP.
- https://pubs.nmsu.edu/variety_trials/alfalfa_2021.pdf
- https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/New_Mexico/Publications/Special_Interest_Reports/NM-Dry-%20Bean-2020-03112021.pdf
- https://webnew.ped.state.nm.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/New-Mexico-Agriculture-Report.pdf
Article written by Becky Hauschild and originally published in Focus Regional 2022 Winter edition.
