Yuma Research Paper

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Yuma is a town in Southwest Arizona on the border of the California and Mexico. Going right through Yuma county is a large river called the Colorado River. With that water, farmers in Yuma and surrounding towns were starting to start farms and had irrigation. The thing was that the river was inconsistent and the farmers had problems with floods and droughts. This is how irrigation changed the complexion of Yuma and the Agricultural business. Irrigation has turned the Arizona Southwest from a dirtland to one of the biggest agriculture cities in the nation. Yuma was in luck because they had a river right next to them, the Colorado River. Enough water to to irrigate all their farms and their crops. The thing about the river was that it was unpredictable. One day the river would be very low, another day when it would be a bad rain storm, the river would …show more content…

50,000 to 60,000 acres from Yuma to Mexico are fertile because of irrigation. Without agriculture the economy would be in complete jeopardy. Irrigation really changed the realm of Yuma. Acres in irrigation went from 13,000 to 6,100. When there is that many farms, you need people to work at the farms. The number of towns went from 2 to 6. The population in the towns went from 3,524 to 35,000. Every single statistic went up when irrigation was in full effect. In the Southwest, agriculture was the way of life. If there job wasn't in agriculture, it was affected by agriculture. Every 100 jobs in agriculture supported 26 jobs in other occupancies.Eighty percent of the Colorado River’s water goes into agriculture. Without the River there would likely be no Yuma or maybe just a small town nobody knows. The agriculture business is still the biggest business in Yuma. Without the building of projects like the Laguna Dam and the Yuma Siphon, we would be nowhere close to where they are today. The southwest was on its way to becoming the agricultural capital of the

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