Facing drought-caused financial worries, some Western farmers find new ways to squeeze money out of their land

Nathan Jurva on his New Mexico land
(Photo by Justin Hamel, The Wall Street Journal)

Many farmers and ranchers in the drought-stricken West are increasingly seeking alternative income sources by using their land for tourism, hunting and natural-resource gathering, Dan Frosch reports for The Wall Street Journal. “If I relied solely on farming, we would live below the poverty line,” Nathan Jurva, a New Mexico farmer, told Frosch. “Diversification is critical to our business plan.”

With less irrigated water reaching his alfalfa and cotton farm, Jurva has turned part of his land into a recreational-vehicle park and is hoping to lease more of his land to a solar project. An Arizona farmer gave tours to 2,000 people last year, and Colorado rancher Zandon Bray said a big-game hunting business he started on his land has come to represent about 80% of his ranch's income, Frosch reports.

In an effort to save water, some farmers are also pivoting away from water-intensive crops. A survey from the American Farm Bureau Federation "found that 33% of respondents reported destroying or removing orchard trees and other multiyear crops to save water. That is up from 17% last year. Some 42% said they intended to switch crops, compared with 37% in 2021," Frosch reports.

“This is a pretty rough time,” said Dawn Thilmany, an agricultural economics professor at Colorado State University. “There may be at the very top some really large established producers who have the economies of scale and the market position to remain focused on their core business. But we see a large share of farms are compelled to look for more diversified streams of income.”