The Rio Grande Valley has long been legendary as a produce powerhouse, feeding markets from Texas to Canada. But agriculture in deep South Texas originally walked on four legs.
That’s according to Rod Santa Ana, a former communications specialist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Weslaco, who made a deep dive into Valley agricultural history before retiring in 2017.
The region was dominated by cattle for about 150 years, according to Santa Ana, thanks to José de Escandón, sent by Spanish authorities in Mexico City to colonize what was then part of the Spanish colony of Nuevo Santander.
“Escandón brought about 6,000 settlers with him, and they were successful way beyond what they expected,” Santa Ana said. “They established 24 villages, 15 missions and about 20 ranches with about 90,000 head of cattle.”
Water was the problem though, ironic, considering the proximity of the mighty Rio Grande.
“They had no way of getting water up and over the banks of the river, so they dug these deep wells for sweet water,” he said. “Once they tapped into sweet underground water, they would work these wells 24 hours a day to keep up with filling the troughs for the cattle.”
The business of raising and selling cattle and cattle byproducts to Mexico survived the Mexican War of Independence and the Mexican- American War and continued through about 1900.
FROM CATTLE TO CROPS
“By 1910 everything changed thanks to the new technology of the day — the invention of the centrifugal pump — the railroad, electricity to make ice to pack vegetables on the railroad trips, improved farm equipment — and eventually that led to the world’s largest private irrigation system,” Santa Ana said.
Between 1900 and 1910, 50 steam-engine pump houses were built along the Rio Grande for irrigation. Growers couldn’t plant fast enough. Outside money poured in until Valley farmland peaked at around 1 million acres, he said.
“It exploded,” Santa Ana said. “Land prices went through the roof. In 1906, you could buy an acre of farmland for $0.25. But by 1910, it had gone up to $300 an acre.”
“Texas produces the best grapefruit in the entire United States and in the entire world. That is something that no one else will likely dispute and could not dispute. That’s not just based on taste preference. That’s based on science.”
THE SWEET SMELL OF CITRUS SUCCESS
The first railroad car full of Valley-grown grapefruit was shipped from McAllen in 1915. Grapefruit eventually covered 120,000 acres of Valley farmland, with the ruby red becoming an international celebrity. Santa Ana estimates Valley agriculture reached its zenith sometime in the early 1950s.
A devastating freeze in 1951 brought Valley citrus to its knees. It happened again, in 1962, 1983 and 1989, not to mention February 2021.
Today, the Valley is down to about 24,000 acres of citrus, though South Texas grapefruit has never been more prized. The ruby was crossed with the Rio red to produce the brilliant Rio star.
Russon Holbrook, part owner and senior vice president of Mission- based South Tex Organics, the state’s largest producer of organic grapefruit, said the Rio star is redder, juicier and better tasting than its predecessors.
“Florida and California have a larger citrus industry than Texas, in terms of acreage and things like that, but here’s what everyone will say: Texas produces the best grapefruit in the entire United States and in the entire world,” he said. “That is something that no one else will likely dispute and could not dispute. That’s not just based on taste preference. That’s based on science.”
Valley grapefruit’s superiority owes much to the perfect soil deposited by a flooding Rio Grande over the millennia before dams and levees.
Holbrook’s citrus can be found in the Valley at the three Earth Born Markets he owns in McAllen, but most gets shipped out of state, even into Canada. Whole Foods is one of his largest buyers.
VERSATILE VALLEY
The Valley grows an enormous array of crops, from sugarcane to bok choy and a lot in between. If it can be grown, there’s a good chance someone has tried to grow it here. Since it was founded in 1923, the Weslaco AgriLife Center has helped farmers figure it out.
“A lot of crops came and went here: avocados, grapes — all kinds of varieties,” Santa Ana said. “But the mainstays are the five we had in the beginning and we still have now: vegetables, citrus, sugarcane, cotton and grains.”
In another bit of irony, the urbanization that Valley agriculture drove over the past century is chipping away at farmland as development expands. Even if the Valley’s agricultural heyday is in the rearview mirror, the region still contributes $1 billion to the Texas economy via crops, livestock and ag-related businesses, he said. Santa Ana predicts the Valley will remain an agricultural player no matter what.
NEW TECH, NEW TRENDS
“As far as the future is concerned, I think we will always — and that’s a big word — but I think we will always have some degree of agriculture,” he said. “And that’s because of technology, biotechnology, breeding, using genetic markers and molecular tools…to develop new, resilient cultivars.”
As demand for organic everything continues to grow, especially in metropolitan markets, organic seems like a smart business move, at least to some Valley farmers. But as Santa Ana points out, the region’s yearround growing season presents challenges — namely the lack of serious winters to kill off pests, occasional killer freezes notwithstanding. This can be especially problematic for organic growers. Miguel Ortiz, co-owner of Los Fresnos-based Tenaza Organics, admits that “we’re still learning.”
“Every day is a learning experience,” he said. “It’s difficult. Sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not. People think, ‘Oh, we want to go down there and do it.’ Well, come on and try. We’re ahead of the game and we still mess up.”
Ortiz’s business partner, Mark Miller, characterizes the Valley as likely one of the hardest places in the country to raise crops organically on a large scale.
“It’s a huge challenge,” he said. “We try.”
Tenaza raises about 15 different crops organically, from onions to beets to broccoli and “all the kales,” Ortiz said. The company sells to distribution centers around Texas for big retailers like H-E-B and Whole Foods, and if you can find an organic produce section in the Valley, you’ll likely find Tenaza products there.
Of course, plenty of South Texas growers make a living farming the conventional way, so why go through the extra hassle to grow organically?
“Because they said we couldn’t,” Ortiz said. “Everybody said we were crazy.”
