Nancy Caywood worries about water constantly. Water – or the uncertainty of it – has kept the 69-year-old Arizona farmer awake at night since supplies began dwindling about two decades ago due to chronic overuse and drought in the American west.
During one particularly low point in late 2021, every field on the 255-acre family farm was either fallow, shrivelled or dormant. “The canal was dry, the reservoir was empty, it was raining at the wrong times … the farm was 100% unproductive and we were using savings to pay bills,” said Caywood, a third-generation farmer in Pinal county who grows mostly alfalfa and cotton – two of the most marketable and water-guzzling commodity crops.
