U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

The southwestern states offer highly diverse agricultural crops, including cotton, lettuce, tree fruit, cantaloupes, grapes, onions, and pecans. The region relies on irrigation more heavily than any other region in the U.S. Water supplies, primarily driven by winter snowfall in the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains, are critical to meeting irrigation needs in the Southwest. Total farm income for the region exceeded $55.7 billion in 2012, and livestock account for approximately one-third of the agricultural profits in these six states. Producers in the Southwest region are already learning to operate in a changing climate and under more extreme weather conditions.