If oil is the blood coursing through southeast New Mexico’s veins and natural gas is the oxygen that allows it to breath, agriculture is the nutrient rich industry that feeds it.
While New Mexico did not become an official state until 1912, farming and ranching in the area were established by both our indigenous and pioneer ancestors. Yet, to claim that regional agriculture today and that of yesteryear are one in the same would be a misnomer. It now supplies the nation and, in some respects and instances, global markets. In Eddy County alone, agriculture is a booming and influential industry that encompasses 640,3511 acres. However, the most crucial element of this data originates from the fact that “in 2022, 95% of U.S. farms were family-owned. Small family farms accounted for 85% of all U.S. farms, 39% of land in farms, and 14% of the value of all agricultural products sold.”2 Thus, on a micro-level, southeast New Mexico’s agricultural industry is truly still one neighbor feeding another. For example, while most people think of traditional commodities, such as the rich fields of green chile and corn that appear throughout the landscape of southeast New Mexico, Eddy County is also home to dairy, wheat, alfalfa, and other products, including a pecan producing juggernaut: Chase Farms.
Utilizing previously acquired acreage, Chase Farms emerged in 1986 to enter a burgeoning pecan market and diversify from their oil and gas portfolios. Within the last few decades, Chase Farms expanded into the greater Permian Basin and Arizona, but its Eddy County (tree) roots have made the company the world’s largest pecan producer with over 14,000 acres of nut bearing trees. Most notably, Chase Farms cultivates and produces the Pawnee Pecan, which harvests in early October, to increase yearly production, and most recently, in 2023, Kortney Chase has parlayed pecans into the “plant-based milk scene”3 with Pecana: The First All Organic Pecan Milk4. While Chase Farms’ products are once again entering a national stage for consumption, Chase fondly acknowledges how the constraints and opportunities of Eddy County molded her perception of agriculture and its influence on her family and community, “Growing up as part of Chase Farms in Artesia, NM, showed me the difficulties and necessities of being a farmer. It is not seasonal; it is year-round work. And hard work is the reality of being a farmer and the heart of Chase Farms as a whole. I am just grateful to be part of the process and family.”5
Chase’s second statement could not be more true: year-round pecan growth and harvesting amounted to “120 thousand metric tons (TMT)”6 in 2024 across the nation, and New Mexico accounted for 38.5 TMT, roughly 31–41 percent of all grown pecans in the United States.7 However, Chase’s first-hand insights on pecan farming in southeast New Mexico rings most significant. The hard work of Eddy County farmers literally feeds back into the county and surrounding areas, ensuring and engendering jobs, agricultural provisions, and a philosophy that transcends isolated notions of work, family, and community. The “process,” as Chase calls it, is synergistic and interdependent to the people who live here: one cannot exist or function without the other. In a world of uncertainty, it is comforting to know that “homegrown” people are still taking care of their neighbors.
References
- United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service. Table 1. County Summary: 2022.
- https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2022/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_2_Count_Level/New_Mexico/st35_2_001_001.pdf
- Family Farms.” 2022 Census of Agriculture Highlights. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2025/Census22_HL_FamilyFarms_FINAL.pdf
- Miller, Laurel. “Meet the Pecan Farmer Who Wants to Change the Plant-Based Milk Scene.” Modern Farmer:
- For People Who Care Where Their Food Comes From.10 June 2024. https://modernfarmer.com/2024/06/meet-the-pecan-farmer-who-wants-to-change-the-plant-based-milk-scene/
- “Pecana: Purely Americana.” Pecana. 2025. https://pecanamilk.com/
- Chase, Kortney. Personal Interview. 7 October 2025.
- “U.S. Pecan Trade and Tariff Outlook.” Pecan South Magazine. 2025. https://www.pecansouthmagazine.com/magazine/article/u-s-pecan-trade-and-tariff-outlook/
- “U.S. Pecan Trade and Tariff Outlook.”
Article written by Dr. Jonathan M. Wilson and originally published in Focus Regional 2025 Winter edition.
Dr. Jonathan M. Wilson
Dr. Jonathan M. Wilson is the Dean of Teaching and Learning and an Associate Professor of English at Southeast New Mexico College. He holds a PhD in English Studies from the University of Texas at Arlington with emphases in 19th and 20th century American Literature, Rhetoric and Writing, and Literary Theory and a specialization in Native American Literature(s). He completed his BA and MA in English Studies at Eastern New Mexico University. Courses taught include Professional and Technical Writing, Rhetoric and Writing, Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences with emphasis on American Culture and Society, and Narrative Theory and Discourse. As Dean, he manages, evaluates, and implements assessment practices and processes, fosters a culture of reflection, and advocates and provides professional development opportunities for faculty.
