USDA Funding to Help Tribal Farmers Use Less Water Amid Climate-Driven Drought

By Kaleb Roedel

The USDA’s Farm Service Agency is funneling $45 million to tribal communities who have irrigation projects owned and operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, including the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, Colorado River Indian Irrigation Project, and San Carlos Irrigation Project. These irrigation systems serve the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, and the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona.

Another $15 million is going to the Colorado State Association of Conservation Districts and the New Mexico State Association of Conservation Districts. The agencies help operate centuries-old irrigation systems some tribes use called acequias, which are gravity-fed ditches that carry rain and snowmelt to crop fields.

“With the lack of infrastructure in a lot of these tribal community places, we have inefficient irrigation, we have folks not being able to get their crops irrigated at all,” said Zach Ducheneaux, who’s a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the administrator of the USDA Farm Service Agency.

Ducheneaux said the funding can be used to improve tribal communities’ irrigation infrastructure. That could mean adding more efficient irrigation nozzles, upgrading groundwater pumps, or lining dirt acequias with concrete so water isn’t lost into the soil.

He added that the money can also help farmers who want to pivot from thirsty crops, like alfalfa, to high-value crops that use less water, like lettuce, grapes or tomatoes.