During that hearing, before the House Natural Resources committee, the lobbying machine of Pinal County agriculture — and the support of sympathetic lawmakers — was on full display.
In addition to new funds that were proposed Tuesday, they have secured, in the past month, $5 million from the Central Arizona Project and $5 million from the state to help pay for groundwater infrastructure.
That bill would create a fund for farmers in Pinal County to develop groundwater pumping infrastructure.
Arizona’s drought planning, Bahr said, had come down to a "last-minute effort to appease a few interests."
If farmers have to fallow their fields, “does it have a ripple effect throughout the state?” Cook, who owns a ranch and whose district contains portions of Pinal County, asked Chelsea McGuire, the director of government relations for the Arizona Farm Bureau.
"We all know that a lot of these farms are owned by developers already,” Engel said.
Betcher dodged the question, saying that agriculture was going to stay in Pinal County for the long term, and it would be using that groundwater infrastructure.
At Shedd’s farm, the canal of the Central Arizona Project cuts west-east across the fields, where they grow 600 acres of durum wheat, most of which goes to Italy, and upland cotton, most of which is exported to China, according to Shedd.
Of that, $1.95 million was for cotton, and just under $100,000 for wheat.
Shedd did not respond to a follow-up question about the subsidies.