A new study out of the University of Arizona measures the scale and economic output of tribal agriculture in Arizona — and it’s big.
University of Arizona professor and Hopi dry farmer Michael Kotutwa Johnson co-authored the study. It found American Indians operate 62% of farms in the state and manage more than 80% of the state’s total agricultural land — to the tune of 20 million acres.
But, as Kotutwa Johnson told The Show, it’s a seriously under-researched area.
Full conversation
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: I think it’s part of our system and how we look at American Indians in this country. We don’t really know what their history was. But our history here in Arizona with the tribes in Arizona, a majority of them have a deep agricultural history that goes way back even 10,000 years.
And so we’re not really at the forefront thought of what I would call industrial agriculture, which is primary source of agriculture in Arizona, where you have a lot of cotton farms, alfalfa farms, things like that.
So I think that’s one of the reasons why it kind of misses the boat. I think also a lot of the people see casinos in this state, they don’t see the agricultural exploits that are happening on the ground. And so there’s little attention given to that.
LAUREN GILGER: Sixty-two percent of all the farms in the state operated by Native Americans, 81% of the state’s total agricultural land, tribal land. This is a massive footprint. And I wonder, how did we not know this before? Were you surprised by these results?
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: I was very surprised, but it’s not too surprising because tribes, the 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona, sit on about a quarter of the acreage of land in Arizona. So that’s pretty much what it is.
But like I said, I don’t think people really understand the agricultural imprint and footprint that we have here in Arizona and have since almost like to say time immemorial. We’ve got canal infrastructure that was basically built upon existing Hohokam agriculture that was done before the state was even founded and the country was founded.
LAUREN GILGER: Right, right. We see the evidence of that right here in the Valley and our biggest city here.
I mean so this connects to what you do, right? You’re a Hopi dry farmer. I’ve been out to your farm on the reservation, interviewed you about your work there, and watched how you do this kind of amazing thing growing this crop with almost no water sometimes, whatever comes down from the sky. And it’s got this long cultural history that it is rooted to.
So, I mean obviously that’s part of your motivation here and part of what you’re trying to do with not just this study, but with your entire body of work, right?
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: Yes. Yes, it is. My big body of work is called the revitalization of the American Indian food system. And why is that so important? Because you have one reservation here that has about an 80% diabetic rate, which is the biggest in the globe, and you also have another one, which I saw congressional testimony on, that the life expectancy rate is only 52 years old.
So you combine those two factors in the health of the people, it’s one of the reasons why I like this study because it brings all the data necessary so that we can maybe get a bigger pot of the pie. Not necessarily all for economic gain, but turn the health numbers of our people around so that they have a long life expectancy rate and not such high rates of diabetes and heart disease.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. And you’re debunking this idea that tribal agriculture or, I guess, tribal economy in general is not having any kind of economic impact on the state. It’s, in fact, having a very big one, it seems.
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: Yes, it is. And I think that’s one of the things that, the Farm Bureau first kind of brought attention to some of these numbers, and they’re a very good outfit.
But the state’s Department of Agriculture also should pay attention to this, because when we talk about money, we heard about there’s a $3 billion agricultural industry in Yuma, but there’s also a couple of tribes down there where a lot of those revenues may or may not be generated from.
And so it’s just kind of looking at the whole thing in its totality. And I think we’re here now and we’ve always been here. And it’s just sometimes we need a little bit more recognition than what we’re currently receiving for our agricultural adventures.
LAUREN GILGER: Talk about economic output because the numbers here are pretty stark. You’ve got $753.3 million in total output in terms of economic output, almost 4,000 jobs related to this.
What does this look like? A lot of this is small-scale farms?
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: A lot of this is small-scale farms, some of it’s big-scale farms with industrial agriculture. But it’s basically all the inputs of it and all the value-addedness that comes from that that makes, these are estimates that were based off of 2022 census.
So I would imagine in my mind that those numbers keep going up only because we see a lot of our own land that was once used for agriculture that’s not owned by the tribe going into more urban settings and starting to be developed on in a big way.
And so I’m just trying to figure out how we can get a bigger footprint and also collaborate with those people who would like to farm but just don’t have the opportunity because they’re having to pay an enormous amount of money to have water brought to their fields.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So water is definitely a part of this. When you look toward the future of Native American agriculture in the state, it looks like you’re anticipating it to be an even bigger part of the pie. Does that have to do with big ag? Does that have to do with tribal water rights?
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: Well, a lot of it has to do with tribal water rights. Tribal water rights under one of the agreements, some of the tribes in southern Arizona are actually allowed 60% of the CAP. They’re allowed to utilize that much, but they don’t.
I think it’s more about what farmers can do and cannot do with a limited amount of water supply, especially now that we have the Lower and Upper basin negotiating for new allocations and new water rights that’s well under way.
A lot of this tribal land is also leased to non-Indians where they’re free to do a lot of agricultural techniques without really having studies done on what types of things they’re putting in our soils. Because part of my work is that we need to look at these soils, because I feel like when I was going out to the different reservations looking at their distribution centers, food distribution centers, I didn’t see hardly any of their own Native products on those shelves in there.
And so we all know that these Native products like the 60-day corn ... the tepary beans that Ramona has, are very healthy for the tribal members, very nutrient-dense. But we need to make sure that we plant these on those soils that can benefit the type of plants those are to bring nutritional value and nutritional health to the people of whose land these crops were originally raised on.
LAUREN GILGER: That’s interesting. So you’re saying a lot of this is tribal land leased out to big agriculture companies that might be growing things that are rough on the land and maybe thirsty crops.
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: Yeah, that are rough on the land. You have some places I know they probably have at least 20, 30 years of alfalfa production, cotton production. And so those are heavy water users.
And so we’re trying to figure out ways to collaborate. ... I have a vision where the tribes start leasing a lot of their land to small farmers who want to get started, and because some of the water rights would come with that. And I think we can do that, then they could dictate policy through different agricultural codes that would allow them to actually have some economic benefit, because if you’re raising organic products on reservations, you can sell those things to like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. And even contribute to some of the health and nutrition of those urban schools that are around that reservation. So you can also, because of the way the regulations are written, you can also do the value-addedness of these crops.
LAUREN GILGER: That’s quite a vision you’re laying out there. So the study, you say, you want it to serve as a baseline going forward. What do you hope for the future in terms of research in this area?
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: Well, it’s not so much the research, it’s just more the participation. Whether you know this or not, we have this thing called the Federally Recognized Tribal Extension Program. It’s a four-year program every year that allows us to put tribal agricultural extension agents, kind of like my job, on the various reservations. But we only have five out of the 22. And these people are key in order to start like community gardens, to help find the needs of the tribe, to start programs that would help with tribal agriculture.
But I would sure like to find a way that the state could step in and also allocate funds because look how much we’re helping the state, not only our agricultural revenues, but our gaming revenues, and water that we’re helping with municipalities that are paying near to nothing for accessing tribal water.
So we need to figure out a best way to not only help their community, but also help the tribal community in the end. And I think that’s the most important thing.
LAUREN GILGER: All right. Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a dry Hopi farmer, co-author on this study, as well as assistant professor and cooperative extension specialist of Indigenous resilience at the University of Arizona, joining us. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it very much.
MICHAEL KOTUTWA JOHNSON: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
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