CURRY COUNTY, N.M. — Every generation of farmers inherits a different story.
For decades, families across eastern New Mexico inherited a story of abundance. Groundwater powered irrigation, crops flourished, and producers expected the land to provide much as it always had.
Today, that story is changing.
“We don’t have the water we’ve always had, so we started asking ourselves, ‘How are we going to be more efficient with our water? What’s this going to look like?”
Declining aquifer levels, prolonged drought and shifting weather patterns are rewriting what it means to farm on the High Plains. Across the region, producers are being forced to ask difficult questions, not just about next year’s crop, but about whether the land will continue to support future generations.
For Bo and Dru Stevens of Pleasure Lake Farms, those questions changed everything. “We knew things were going to have to adapt,” Dru said. “We don’t have the water we’ve always had, so we started asking ourselves, ‘How are we going to be more efficient with our water? What’s this going to look like?”
Instead of trying to preserve the past, the Stevens family chose to prepare for the future.
Years before restoring their first playa, the Stevens family was already thinking decades ahead. They knew declining groundwater would eventually change how they farmed. Some irrigated acres would become dryland, and the marginal ground surrounding their playas — shallow, naturally occurring wetlands that capture rainfall, provide critical wildlife habitat and help recharge the Ogallala Aquifer — was becoming increasingly difficult to farm. Rather than fighting those changes, they began asking a different question: What was the land naturally designed to do?
That search led them to Playa Lakes Joint Venture and a partnership that helped restore the playa near their home. The project removed years of accumulated sediment to allow more water to infiltrate the ground, restored the basin’s natural contours and established a surrounding buffer of native grasses that slow runoff, reduce erosion. Since then, the Stevens family has continued restoring additional properties across their operation.
But for Bo and Dru, restoring a playa was never the end goal. It was about creating a future their children could inherit. “We didn’t want to be reactionary,” Dru said. “We wanted to preserve the groundwater around our home. We wanted to go back to what the land is best used for.”
That philosophy has reshaped the entire operation. Ground that once struggled to produce reliable crops now supports healthy grasslands, cattle grazing and hay production. Wind erosion has decreased, soil remains in place and rainfall is no longer rushing across bare fields as quickly as it once did.
Perhaps most encouraging has been what they haven’t seen. The house well closest to the restored playa has shown no measurable decline in groundwater levels since restoration began. “We’re not on edge with our water anymore,” Bo said. “We feel very secure with what we’ve got.”
Still, the Stevens family says the greatest measure of success can’t be found in a water well or a hay field. It came during a recent evening while checking cattle with one of their four daughters. “I asked her if she could ever see herself doing this,” Dru said. “There was a time when I couldn’t really see a good future for them. I didn’t want to hand them something and say, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know how you’re going to make this work.’ Now they have that opportunity if they want it.”
For Dru, that conversation represented something larger than conservation. It meant their daughters would inherit choices, not burdens.
Bo believes that’s a lesson many producers are beginning to embrace as the story of water continues to evolve across the region. “I’m not saying stop irrigating,” he said. “We still irrigate where it makes sense. But run the numbers. Sometimes we’re doing things because it’s the way we’ve always done it, when there may be another path forward.”
Neither Bo nor Dru pretend to have all the answers. Like many producers, they’re learning, adapting and making decisions one season at a time. “We don’t claim to have a playbook,” Bo said. “Every farm is different. We just want people to know there are ways to evolve and transform instead of watching your farm fade away.”
As the story of water continues to change across eastern New Mexico, the Stevens family hopes their own story reminds others that legacy isn’t measured only by the acres passed from one generation to the next. Sometimes, legacy is found in having the courage to farm differently, so the next generation still has the chance to farm at all.
Learn more about Bo & Dru’s story, and hear them talk about farming for the future.