TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Cathy Lowling started working at Felicia’s Farm in Tucson in 2010. For Lowling, this past summer has been rough, Lowling saying the drought was extra rough on the farm’s crops.
“This is the worst drought we’ve had to go through….it’s been brutal and disappointing,” Lowling said.
Lowling said they’re 3 weeks behind in production because of the drought and the heat that lasted through mid September especially affected their carrots. She said in total, they lost about 400 pounds of crops per week.
She said that means she has to farm faster.
As for the farm’s water well, it dried up quicker than normal, Lolwing saying it dried up by 10:30 in the morning.
She also said their retention tank got damaged and they had to pay thousands of dollars for an additional one.
“The only answer was to invest 4800 dollars in a new tank to make everything work again because the water had gotten so low,” she said.
She said that meant not watering two apple trees that eventually died, which meant less crop production for the farm.
Lolwing said Felicia’s Farm gives 100 percent of their produce to organizations, and because of that, they weren’t able to donate as much food to 10 organizations.
“It makes a big impact. If you consider, if everyone had even half a pound in their meal, that’s 600 people that didn’t have their meals,” Lolwing said.
However, she said the recent rain is helping the farm, even though it came late.
“Rainwater is, has more nitrogen in it that fortifies the plants better,” she said.
However, for some crops like cotton, the rain is a disadvantage.
Arnold Burruel owns Burruel and Burruel Farms Partnership in Marana and said he’s been farming his whole life.
He said the recent rain is affecting the cotton’s quality of lint and the seed.
“We suffer price loss when we have discoloration of the lint or the fiber becomes weakened,” Burruel said.
He said the loss could reduce his income by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He said monsoon has already been rough and so far there has been a lot of rain this Fall.
He said next year he’s hoping for less rain because a dry climate benefits his cotton.
“I’m hoping for high prices and high yields. How does that sound?” he said.
——-
Andrew Christiansen is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before joining the team, Andrew reported in Corpus Christi, Texas for KRIS6 News, Action 10 News and guest reported in Spanish for Telemundo Corpus Christi. Share your story ideas with Andrew by emailing andrew.christiansen@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.
