Meeting the Challenge: A Trusted Adviser Helps Producers Maintain Their Profitability in Water-Limited West Texas
Like many professors at land-grant universities across the U.S., Dr. Donna McCallister is charged with helping local farmers understand how adopting conservation practices will affect their productivity and profitability. Based at Texas Tech University, Dr. McCallister takes a unique role in steering local producers through an existential shift in this challenge – how to produce a profitable crop when the Ogallala Aquifer which sustains their land is rapidly depleting.
“Many of the producers we work with are being faced with big decisions at the field level. We hear, ‘I’m running out of water – what do I do?’” shares Dr. McCallister. “Agriculture in this area is changing over time as producers are transitioning to dry-land systems, such as growing cotton in rotation with sorghum and wheat, and maybe bringing cattle in. It has been a slow transition, but our producers are innovators and leaders ready to meet this challenge.”
As part of the leadership team for Texas Tech’s Texas Alliance for Water Conservation (TAWC), Dr. McCallister partners with 30 growers each year to help them understand these local conditions, and analyze how their on-farm management decisions impact both environmental and economic outcomes.
TAWC provides producers with irrigation technologies such as moisture probes, as well as hands-on technical assistance and data analysis to track the impacts of new tools and management practices. Dr. McCallister has also established a pilot project with the National Cotton Council that stands as one of Field to Market's longest standing continuous improvement projects.
One key to the project’s success has been providing producers with valuable insights into their profitability, an analysis Dr. McCallister leads as TAWC’s resident agricultural economist.
“They provide us with budget data, and I analyze that for profitability over time,” explains Dr. McCallister. “We see a whole spectrum of producers all trying to make a profit and be successful in their operation. TAWC works because these producers know that they can trust us to provide good, unbiased information.”
For participating farmers, the value in TAWC comes not just from analysis of their own data, but by accessing shared learnings from a community of fellow producers.
“TAWC’s research is really critical to help me know what I need to do and see not just what works on my farm, but what works for others,” shares Barry Evans, a TAWC producer and Field to Market’s 2021 Farmer of the Year. “They’re tracking what practices are the most effective, which helps me know where to irrigate and what level is the most economical.”
Dr. Donna McCallister
Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Applied Economics
Texas Tech University
To power this data analysis, Dr. McCallister and the TAWC team turns to Field to Market’s Fieldprint Platform to enter and analyze producer data.
“Once we enter our data into the Fieldprint Platform, we show growers their sustainability footprint so they can see the direct impact their management practices have on their indicators,” explains Dr. McCallister. ”It’s another tool to help them aid in their operation and help them make management decisions at the field level.”
Armed with this data in hand, TAWC then hopes to empower the community of farmers to share learnings with other producers in Texas and beyond.
“We hear from producers that there’s no such thing as average, and what worked last year may not work this year,” says Dr. McCallister. “At TAWC events, producers give presentations along with their crop consultants to educate other growers on the things they’ve tried that worked, and they talk about the things that didn’t work – which builds a great network of communication between them.”
“TAWC runs field days and a water college in the winter which helps producers collaborate,” shares Evans. “They’re passionate about what they’re doing on water conservation – and when someone’s passionate about what they do, you develop trust. They’re the best in the region.”
As the Ogallalla continues to deplete, Dr. McCallister knows that agriculture in the region will evolve over time – and she is confident that TAWC can continue to support the region’s producers to meet their challenges head on.
“The biggest impact that we have discovered is that it is possible to maintain your profitability over time when faced with declining resource conditions, like the water availability issues we have here,” says Dr. McCallister. “You can do this. It is challenging, but you can do this.”
“The biggest impact that we have discovered is that it is possible to maintain your profitability over time when faced with declining resource conditions, like the water availability issues we have here. It is challenging, but you can do this.”
Dr. Donna McCallister
Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Applied Economics
Texas Tech University
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