Ron Rayner’s family has farmed in the West Valley for generations. He runs A Tumbling T Ranch, growing wheat, alfalfa, cotton and barley on land in Buckeye, Goodyear and Gila Bend.From his office in Goodyear, you can see new developments springing up all around from the north. But to the south, it’s still sprawling fields of crops and a clear view to the Estrella Mountains.“I grew up right here, on this place. That little wooden house. Just to the north of us, there we had five kids in one room, my siblings. So we grew up right here on this piece of ground,” Rayner said.
Camryn Sanchez/KJZZ
Ron Rayner’s family has farmed in the West Valley for generations. He runs A Tumbling T Ranch, growing wheat, alfalfa, cotton and barley on land in Buckeye, Goodyear and Gila Bend.
Rayner is part of a group of Arizona farmers eyeing an opportunity to sell some of their land to developers eager to use it to boost Arizona’s housing supply.The concept is known as “ag-to-urban.”It’s a pathway to convert farmland to residential use, a process that is currently restricted because of groundwater shortages in Active Management Areas — parts of Arizona, including the metro Phoenix region, that are subject to regulation under the state’s groundwater code.Certain housing projects in areas like the Phoenix AMA must prove they have at least 100 years of assured water supply before building. When Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs took office in 2023, she announced groundwater levels in the West Valley were too low to meet that requirement. As a result, developers are not currently allowed to build new subdivisions there.Building homes on agricultural land provides developers an opportunity to meet the 100-year requirement in a different way — by retiring the agricultural water rights on that land.
Camryn Sanchez/KJZZ
From Ron Raynor’s office in Goodyear, you can see new developments springing up all around.
According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, the average acre of agricultural land in the Phoenix Active Management Area — a zone with groundwater restrictions — uses about 3.8 acre feet of water per year.Depending on the land, residential developments use as little as a quarter of that.In one ag-to-urban proposal, legislative analysts estimate roughly 2.85 acre feet of water — per acre, per year — would be saved in the Phoenix AMA if agriculture land was converted to residential use. That’s enough savings to meet the AMA’s water supply requirements for housing development.In exchange, developers are offering roughly $70,000 to $250,000 per acre of agricultural land, according to Spencer Kamps, vice president of legislative affairs for the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona.Farmers like Rayner have a choice between the annual profits from crops on their land, or accepting a one-time payout. Rayner says the payout is a reasonable offer, considering the increasing restrictions he faces on the land’s water rights.“Our water duties are limited, and there’s nothing more worthless to a farmer than land without water, and so if they keep cutting our water duties back, pretty soon you have land that you can’t use,” he said.Rayner said whether that’s enough money to sell would depend on the farmer and the cost of growing t …
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