It is easy to think of New Mexico as a desert state where not much happens agriculturally, but even before modern irrigation techniques native peoples were farming as far back as 2,500 years ago.

While New Mexico is seeing its rural counties decline, it does pose the question, are these losses due to the changes in farming over the last 50 years, or is this part of a change in another industry?

Currently with oil leases booming in parts of eastern New Mexico, places like Eddy & Lea Counties are projected to increase population dramatically over the next decade because of renewed activity in the oil sector. They both grew by 8% from 2010 to 2017.

Meanwhile just north of them is De Baca County, which has one of state’s larger areas of farmland along the Pecos River, has lost 11% of its population in the same time.

With multiple different industries making or breaking rural communities, regardless of the amount of agriculture going on there or not. New Mexico poses many questions as to what will it take to sustain rural communities of any kind in the Twenty-first Century.