Pecan farmers in Borderland struggle with finding water amid drought conditions

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (KVIA) - Water is a necessary resource for pecan farmers, but farmers in the Borderland are having to find other ways to get enough of it.

Shannon Ivey, a fourth generation pecan farmer, says this has led to farmers having to get their water through alternative methods after noticing climate changes in his 25 years of farming.

"Our biggest challenge has been the drought, so water is our number one issue," he says. "So instead of relying exclusively on the Rio Grande and ground water, we now are pumping a lot of ground water and developing a lot of wells to irrigate our trees."

Ivey says this makes an impact due to the Southwest region producing almost a third of the nation's pecan supply.

Depending on the year, he says Doña Ana County and El Paso County alone can fill that quota due to ideal conditions.

"Basically what we have here in the southwest is a lot of sunlight, and that leads to a lot of really nice growing conditions as long as you can get enough water so the trees can thrive," Ivey said.

However, Ivey is experiencing problems with the water from the wells at his farm in El Paso County.

"We tend to have very brackish water, it's full of salt, sodium, and chloride," Ivey said. "Which are very challenging for a pecan tree to do well in, like most plants."

Another issue Ivey says is monsoon season, which usually provides enough water for a second irrigation cycle, hasn't been strong enough.

"They haven't been very good in recent years," Ivey said. "When I was growing up in the 80's you could rely on that to possibly add an additional or supplemental irrigation into your growing season to reduce your footprint of groundwater you were using."

All of this he says has led to increased costs, making the same amount of pecans more expensive to grow even though farmers like him can't charge more.

"As far as prices, we can't really do much to effect what we're getting paid," Ivey said. "However we've seen substantially increased inputs in the past 20 years due to the drought, due to the cost of ground water pumping, due to the cost of the fuels to run our engines to pump the water, and of course there's other labor costs, fertilizer costs can effect how much money you're spending to produce a crop."