By Shala Watson
Multimedia Writer
Texas Farm Bureau’s (TFB) AgLead XIII class returned home with fresh ideas and deeper connections from a four-day trip to the Rio Grande Valley Feb. 27-March 2.
The trip gave AgLead members a chance to connect and engage with other farmers and ranchers from across the Lone Star State. They discussed issues and ideas with other leadership-minded members and the common challenges they all face.
“Water infrastructure, border security, immigration and trade were major topics of discussion during the trip,” Whit Weems, TFB director of Leader Development, said.
The Valley offers a unique climate that allows vegetables like onions, kale, chard and cilantro to be grown year round. Farmers in the Valley are also the first in the state and nation to begin planting crops like corn and cotton.
The water infrastructure in the Valley is also unique. The Rio Grande River is the lifeblood of farmers in that region and without it they wouldn’t be able to grow crops.
The group was able to see how different irrigation systems work and toured a farm that uses pumps to water their crops directly from the Rio Grande River. Farmers in that region have to maintain irrigation and plan for how much water they will be allocated to ensure they have enough for their crops.
“The irrigation canal system allows them to move water as far as 25 miles inland by only pumping it twice,” Lee Calvert, Ellis County farmer and rancher, said. “That’s a long way to get a steady, reliable, effective way to irrigate crops. It allows them to grow a lot of things that don’t grow anywhere else in Texas.”
AgLead members visited several farms during the trip, including Rio Fresh where they saw the entire process of onions being harvested, processed in the packing sheds and shipped out to the retail markets. They also watched as the other vegetables came in from the fields and were cleaned, inspected, processed and sorted in a box sealed with ice on top, ready to be shipped.
The group also toured several citrus orchards, packing facilities and a juice plant.
“It’s amazing how fast citrus goes from the field, through the juicing process, is pasteurized and bottled, in a matter of minutes,” Calvert said. “I noticed that a lot of these places that processed citrus didn’t waste anything. They couldn’t afford to waste anything. Fresh citrus was graded down to the size that could make them marketable, and other facilities even make byproducts such as molasses and citrus pulp pellets that can be fed to cattle.”
The group toured the only sugar mill in Texas—the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, Inc. They saw burned sugarcane fields being harvested, as well as the equipment that is used to bring it to the mill where it’s sampled, weighed and unloaded before running through a grinder.
“They will extract the sugar from that, extract molasses, and the dry matter that’s left over is burned to generate steam and electricity to run the plants,” Kelly Langdon, Hood County rancher, said. “So they are all self-sufficient. They make their own electricity to run everything.”
Visiting the Valley also allowed the farmers and ranchers to see how agriculture is different in that region of the state than their own operations.
“Where we are from, it’s mostly ranchland. There’s a few places that grow some crops and harvest them,” Langdon said. “But by far, there is a whole lot more farming down here than there is ranching.”
The Valley’s proximity to Mexico and international borders plays a key role in Texas agriculture and trade.
“When you’re standing there looking across the river at Mexico, that’s a completely different country—a different president, a different governor, a different judicial system,” Weems said. “I don’t think until you stand there and experience it can you really grasp it firsthand the value and the relationship between Texas and Mexico.”
They visited the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge to see the importance of the Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agricultural inspection stations and what goes into managing trade and inspecting cargo for insect pests and contraband.
This tour also sparked new ideas among the farmers and ranchers to consider implementing on their own operations.
“I’d like to try to implement some of the thin