Phoenix to Yuma
Dairy Farming in Arizona
 |
| It is hard to see the details of the dairy barns but there is row upon row maybe up to 50 barns |
 |
This is a stock photo of what the barns would look like . These farms have about 10,000 milk cows, and around 17000 young stock. These farms have their own dairy to process and sell the milk and milk products. It seems that some of these corporations own similar operations in Wisconsin. We passed at least 1/2 dozen of these operations. All of the feed for these animals is grown on irrigated land, most of the water comes from the Colorado river , and some from wells drilled about 1/2 mile deep.
This creates a lot of controversy as when wells are drilled that deep it depletes the water from the shallow wells so local residents run out of water. Residents cannot afford to drill wells 2500 feet deep.
|
Dateland
A couple from Calgary own this very popular stop along highway # 8. It is most famous for their date shakes as well as everything else dates.
 |
| The last time we stopped here we walked around the date grove and were able to pick fallen dates from the ground. This year there doesn't seem to be any on the trees or on the ground. Not sure what is going on. |
 |
| Delicious medjool dates, $10.75 US a lb |
Solar Farms
 |
| There are a lot of solar farms in Arizona , which makes perfect sense since there is sunshine here almost 365 days a year. What was interesting is that these panels are trough shaped |
 |
| Parabolic Solar panels |
2 comments:
I didn't know there was enough crop land in AZ to feed that many milkers and young cattle.
In the Gila valley there is a large basin where they grow a lot of crops for these cattle, all under irrigation. They grow 5 to 6 cuts per year of alfalfa, and average 4 to 5 tons per acre. Not sure but out of the 100 dairy farms in the state with an average of 1500 dairy cows, I think there are less that 10 that are in the 10,000 range. The beef industry here is about the same size as the dairy industry
Post a Comment