The Real Farm to Table: Why Supporting Local Food Matters

A Conversation with Claudia Hauser, Hauser & Hauser Farms. Photo courtesy of  ©Morgan Heim

Welcome to our summer series, exploring the people who grow our food, care for our land, and quietly hold up the foundation of our local economy: Arizona’s farmers and ranchers.

Behind every neatly packaged item on the shelf is a farmer fighting to stay afloat. In Arizona, droughts drag on and subdivisions stretch across once-productive land, pushing ranchers and growers to the edge. The ones still standing are fueled by grit, stubbornness, and sheer will. But they can’t keep doing it alone.

If you’ve been paying attention, you already know: all over the U.S., we’re losing vast amounts of farmland. Developers show up with deep pockets and bulldozers. Regulations stack up. Labor gets scarce. And then nature throws in a late freeze, a flood, or a wildfire—just to keep things interesting.

In this series, you’ll hear from the ones still standing. The ones who’ve weathered droughts, debt, and red tape, and still show up at dawn. They’re not just worth listening to. They’re worth standing with.

Thanks for showing up.

A Conversation with Claudia Hauser, Hauser & Hauser Farms

It’s mid-morning when I pull into Hauser & Hauser Farms. The air still holds a hint of chill. Tractors line the drive, pecan trees stand dormant, and the fields are being prepped for the season ahead. Come summer, this quiet stretch will buzz with life as locals line up for for what’s often called the best sweet corn in the state.

For me, it’s the first time I’ve visited the farm. I’ve seen the Hauser name sweep through local Facebook groups, with neighbors taking orders for corn runs like it’s a gold rush. But I’d never met Claudia Hauser until now. I’d heard a lot about her—sharp, respected, the kind of woman who calls it straight and doesn’t waste time dressing it up. My kind of conversation.

Claudia Hauser didn’t grow up on a farm but married into a family that worked the land for six generations. And after decades beside her husband Kevin, raising their kids through growing seasons, long harvest nights, and unpredictable weather, she’s as much a part of the land as the crops they pull from it.

The Hauser family’s roots stretch back to Iowa, where Kevin’s grandfather farmed before heading west. In 1948, Kevin’s father, Dick Hauser, began raising and hauling citrus in North Phoenix. By the early 1970s, Kevin moved to Camp Verde. He began working the soil planting, expanding, and eventually farming in Paulden and California’s Central Valley, where he grew walnuts, oranges, and olives. For the Hauser’s, farming runs deep. It’s in their blood, their bones, and their way of life and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

When Kevin passed away just over five years ago, it didn’t stop the work but it changed everything. Grief didn’t come with a pause button on the irrigation schedule.

Zach, the oldest son, stepped in to take over the day-to-day management of the farm with no spotlight, just quiet resolve. Ben, their youngest son, was in law enforcement, building a life of his own when Kevin’s condition worsened. Claudia asked him to come home, there was no other way. Ben left his career, stepped into the rows with his brother, picked up what needed carrying, and never looked back. Just like the rest of the family, he showed up and that’s how they made it through.

Claudia’s daughter, Emily, helps at the corn stand during the summer, and Zach’s wife, Sherry, is right there during the rush of corn season too. They’re part of the rhythm, part of the reason the farm keeps going. When it’s time to work, everyone works.

They tend to three family-run farms across the Verde Valley. The pecan trees stretch across one farm like a cathedral, steady and familiar. The other two rotate between sweet corn, field corn, malt barley, alfalfa, and watermelons, following a three-year cycle to protect the soil. The rotation isn’t just good farming—it’s a promise. That this land will keep producing, that their grandchildren, eleven of them, will have something real to inherit. Not just a name, but a way of life.

Midnight in the Fields

When spring hits, the season doesn’t ease in. It launches full tilt. For the Hausers, that means 24-hour irrigation schedules. Water has to move from one row to the next without pause. Alarms ring at odd hours. Boots hit dirt before sunrise. There’s no such thing as “we’ll get to it later.” The fields don’t wait.

Years ago, when Claudia’s husband Kevin ran the farm, the motto was simple: no excuses. Chop chop. Get it done. That didn’t change when he got sick and it didn’t change after he passed. But it did make Claudia and her sons stop and ask: Is there a better way to do this?

Back then, Claudia would wake in the middle of the night, pull on her boots, grab a flashlight, and head out into the kind of dark that makes your ears do the seeing. Camp Verde doesn’t do streetlights, it’s a Dark Sky community. The stars show up. So do the wild things.

She’d walk alone into acres of silence to move the water by hand. No apps, just the weight of rusted metal gates, soaked shoes, and the rush of water changing course because she told it to.

“It scared the hell out of me,” she says now, laughing. “But the water had to move.” And so did she.

Today, things look different.

The pecan orchard runs on sprinklers. The other fields are managed by center pivots, giant steel arms that crawl across the land delivering water with precision. No more midnight hikes with a wrench in hand. Now, they run the system from a phone, adjusting water flow based on what’s planted—alfalfa gets one rate, corn another. Just tap and go.

The tech didn’t just bring convenience. It brought sanity and sustainability. They use less water, less labor, and save money. But without support from the Nature Conservancy, none of it would’ve been possible. Center Pivot systems are priced far out of reach for most family farms.

“They gave us options we could never have afforded on our own. No farmer can,” Claudia says.

She still gets up early, 3 or 4 a.m., but now it’s to hit the gym. After that, it’s time for bookkeeping, then pruning pecan trees, a part of the job she loves. Just her, the fresh air, and her music.

“I’m an introvert,” she says. “Give me a field and a playlist, and I’m good.”

The family runs the farm from sunup to sundown. There’s equipment to maintain, rows to plant, crops to rotate, and a hundred quiet tasks that keep the land alive.

But these days, that’s not the hardest part.

The real fight? It’s the slow, steady squeeze of land, rules, and water rights slowly closing in from every side.

Not All Growth Is Progress

Claudia Hauser has seen it coming for years. Her late husband did too. Kevin was talking about the loss of farmland two decades ago, long before anyone else was paying attention. Now, people are finally starting to get it. Farms are being swallowed by development at a pace that makes your head spin—and your dinner plate look a little more fragile.

Yes, people need homes. But they also need food. You can’t build on every acre and still expect a harvest.

“When you’re a farmer through and through,” Claudia says, “and you’re not about to give it up—not going to sell out—you’d think the land would be enough to hold your ground.” But development doesn’t ask permission. It just rolls in and dares you to stop it.

That’s already happened to farms in the Valley, where the city crept up and swallowed the edges. Where subdivisions butted right up against farmland and made it impossible to maneuver a tractor without worrying about traffic or lawsuits.

Claudia worries the same fate is creeping toward Camp Verde. Their three farms are spread across the Verde Valley and getting from one to the next means driving big equipment down city roads that weren’t built for farm equipment. “You try moving a combine through town traffic,” she says. “You can’t.”

Losing space to work is only part of the problem development brings. As the city creeps closer, so do the problems. The Hauser’s have faced break-ins, vandalism, and theft—most of it, Claudia says, from people high on drugs. They’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now, every field is wired with surveillance. Not because they wanted to live that way. Because they had to.

To make matters worse, Claudia sat through a community meeting in Chino Valley and heard what no farmer wants to hear: Yavapai County is the next big growth corridor, and Camp Verde’s got a target on it.

You don’t slap a bullseye on a town that grows your food and call it progress. That’s not progress. That’s planned destruction neatly packaged in a pantsuit and PowerPoint.

It made her sick. Bone-deep sick.

Here’s the thing, urban sprawl doesn’t just squeeze farmers out. It cuts into food supply, history, wildlife, water, and the very reason people move to rural places in the first place. Then the new folks show up and want to reshape it all.

“We live out here because we like the open spaces, the wildlife, and the quiet,” Claudia says. “Not to mention, this is where we grow your food. If you can’t survive without a five-minute grocery run, don’t move to where we grow the groceries.”

Her advice for city transplants dreaming of a Costco, a Trader Joe’s, and another thousand rooftops? Move to where those things already exist. Don’t roll into a farm town and try to fix what was never broken. It’s not just okay—it’s essential—to leave farmland, farmland.

Farmers can fight for their land, lock the gates, and still find themselves back in the ring year after year. Thanks to the Nature Conservancy, all three Hauser farms are protected by conservation easements. The development rights are gone—permanently. These are forever farms. Most farms aren’t so lucky.

But even that hasn’t kept the battles off Claudia’s doorstep. Yavapai County tried to hike her property taxes, arguing the land was worth more without development rights. What? She had to hire an attorney and work with a state senator to draft a bill protecting conservation easements from over-taxation.

Let that sink in.

She gave up development rights to save the land—and they tried to punish her for it.

“I learned fast,” Claudia says. “Politics has nothing to do with doing what’s right. The county assessor and treasurer fought our efforts like they had skin in the game. They didn’t. I pulled the bill. It was never about land. It was always about money.”

Water Wars

Brenda Hauser, Claudia’s mother-in-law, stood in front of a room full of suits in 2003 and said the one thing they didn’t want to hear: Stop draining the farms to fill your swimming pools.

She didn’t come to beg. She came to warn.

At the time, Brenda was Mayor of Camp Verde and a representative for multiple watershed groups. But more importantly, she was a farmer. She understood what was at stake—not just for her family, but for every Arizonan who eats.

She told lawmakers, “We’re not growing hubcaps—we’re growing food.”

Farms were already being wiped out at breakneck speed, and every meeting about a new golf course or subdivision started the same way: dry up the farms. Never mind that irrigated fields send water back to the aquifer. Housing tracts don’t. Pools don’t.

More than half a million acres were already gone in the West by then.

And now?

Try twelve million.

Between 2015 and 2022, the U.S. lost approximately 12.4 million acres of farmland averaging nearly 1.8 million acres per year. In Arizona, from 2017 to 2022, the number of farms decreased by 2,376, a 12% reduction, and the state lost about 600,000 acres of farmland.

The trend Brenda sounded the alarm about has only intensified. Subdivisions continue to receive “100-year water supply” designations, certifications meant to prove a development has enough water to last a century, even as surrounding wells go dry. And despite being home to one of the most fragile water supplies in the country, Arizona still lacks the legislative tools to require developers to consider the long-term impact on local agriculture and water tables.

In other states, Kentucky, Iowa, and North and South Dakota, agriculture is recognized as vital infrastructure. Farmers are offered technical assistance and financial support to diversify and thrive.

Brenda challenged Arizona’s leaders to do the same.

Her story wasn’t just a warning. It was a reminder that agriculture is not just about food—it’s about sovereignty, sustainability, and survival.

If Arizona wants to protect its future, it must begin by valuing the people and the land that feeds it.

Brenda saw it coming. Claudia’s living it.

And Claudia doesn’t sugarcoat things. “This is a fight,” she says. “A lifelong one. People will die over water.”

That’s not a metaphor.

Her husband had guns pulled on him for tearing out illegal siphons. He’s had to call for police escorts. They’ve been threatened with tire irons and pitchforks for protecting the waterways that keep their farm alive.

Why? Because some folks think if a ditch runs past their backyard, they own it.

Claudia pays nearly $20,000 a year for water. Others steal it. And when the Hausers try to stop them? “It’s like the Hatfields and McCoys out here,” she says.

“You want water for more golf courses, pools, and urban sprawl in the desert? Great. Then stop eating.”

The Cost of Control

Before Claudia and Kevin secured conservation easements to protect their land in Camp Verde, they had a backup plan. They purchased a couple of farms in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Just in case they were ever forced out of Arizona.

They had no idea what they were walking into.

“When we farmed in California in 2006, everything was fine until it wasn’t,” Claudia says. “Then came the Delta smelt.”

In 2007, a federal judge ruled that water operations in the Central Valley were violating the Endangered Species Act by threatening a two-inch fish called the Delta smelt. In 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doubled down—ordering massive restrictions on agricultural water pumping to protect the species’ habitat. Never mind that studies showed shutting off the water wouldn’t make a difference. They did it anyway.

“That was the biggest bunch of shit made up by environmentalists I’ve ever seen,” Claudia says. “They cut the water off to save a fish no one’s even heard of. We had no water left to farm. None.”

She and Kevin watched crops die.

“And now? I can’t sell that farm,” she says. “Can’t wait to get the hell out of California. It’s insane.”

The California story didn’t stop there. In 2014, Governor Jerry Brown signed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, SIGMA, forcing farmers to dry up parts of their own land in the name of aquifer preservation.

“Government got bigger, pencil pushers multiplied, and here they came—checking on us, regulating us, telling us how to run a farm they’ve never stepped foot on or any farm for that matter,” Claudia says. “They call it sustainability. I call it bullshit.”

And it’s not just water.

Last year, the federal government tried phasing out diesel engines, an effort Claudia describes as another foot on farmers’ necks. “If you want food, you need diesel. Period,” she says. “I read the bill. They buried California and Colorado regulatory language in the footnotes—two of the most impossible states to farm in.

You can’t keep tying farmers’ hands and expect full plates.

Leave us out of the conversation long enough, and eventually, there’s nothing left to talk about—except what’s missing at dinner.

“So much happened while we were working,” Claudia says. “Farmers were busy feeding people. Meanwhile, bureaucrats were in boardrooms making decisions that affect our ability to produce food for our communities.”

The worst part? It’s by design.

“Bureaucrats need problems to stay relevant. Even if it’s exaggerated, or total bullshit, it keeps them employed and us fighting to survive.”

One bill, in particular, sends Claudia to the moon: Ag to Urban Water. She calls it what it is—“selling out.” The farmer gives up the water rights, the land goes dry, and the pavement follows. First, it’s a water deal. Then it’s a subdivision. That’s how farms disappear, one siphoned acre at a time.

“They call that progress? I call it a bunch of crap,” she says. “Golf or food. Pick one.”

Claudia’s not opposed to environmental care. She wants clean water and air. Who doesn’t? But she wants common sense, too.

“This isn’t hard,” she says. “You want to help the water table? Thin the forests. Shut down the water parks. Stop building subdivisions with a pool every five feet. But taking water from farmers? That’s madness.”

When asked whether she sees the tide turning and whether leaders like RFK Jr. might offer hope. She lays it out plain.

“He’s a litigator. That’s how he made his money. I get nervous about the extremism,” she says. “I know he cares about the earth and I respect that. But he needs to sit down with farmers. Protecting the planet shouldn’t mean starving the people. And no, I don’t see regulations getting better.”

Dispelling the Myths

Farmers are not just fighting bad policy; they are fighting bad press. There’s a lot of noise out there about farming, especially on social media. Scroll through a few reels and you’ll find claims that all corn is genetically modified, that the only real corn seeds come from Mexico, or that American farmers are out spraying chemicals in hazmat suits like it’s a scene from a sci-fi movie.

Claudia rolls her eyes.

“Our seeds aren’t GMO,” she says. “They come from a small supplier down in southern Arizona. And nobody out here is suited up in hazmat suits to spray their fields. That’s total crap. It’s fear-driven propaganda. The goal is to make agriculture look irresponsible when the truth is just the opposite.”

Take chemicals, for example. Claudia doesn’t dodge the topic—she’s pro-chemical.

“People hear that word and freak out,” Claudia says. “But everything in this world is made of chemicals except for light, heat, and sound. Your kitchen table is chemicals. Your drinking water is chemicals. You and I? Chemicals.”

It’s not about whether something is a chemical. It’s about the dose, the purpose, and how it’s used.

Glyphosate, often cited as a boogeyman in agriculture, is one of the most misunderstood tools in the shed. While lawsuits and headlines have painted it as a health hazard, Claudia points out that major regulatory agencies around the world, including the EPA and EFSA, continue to say it’s safe when used as directed.

“And that’s how we use it,” she says. “If we don’t keep weeds off the fields, we lose the crop. But we use just enough, no more. We’re training every year. We follow best practices. And with GPS-guided equipment, we’re more precise than ever.”

Over-spraying? That’s for amateurs.

“Your average homeowner buys a bottle of Roundup and sprays it like it’s Febreze,” she says. “Farmers? We don’t do that. We can’t afford to. This stuff is expensive. And accuracy isn’t just good science—it’s good business.”

Technology has helped tremendously, Claudia says. Today’s tractors are smart. Sprayers are dialed in. Fertilizer and weedkillers are applied with pinpoint precision. Every pass across a field is measured, mapped, and monitored.

That’s the part people don’t see on social media because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

“Spraying chemicals isn’t reckless,” she says. “It’s calculated. It’s responsible. And most of all—it’s necessary.”

Nearly a century ago, farmers got it wrong. Over-farming in the 1930s helped trigger the Dust Bowl and scarred the land for a generation. But they learned. They adapted. And today, no one understands stewardship better than a farmer.

“You want to talk about taking care of the land? Look at a farmer,” Claudia says. “We don’t strip it bare. We rotate crops to protect the soil. We monitor moisture, adjust inputs, and plant cover crops. We do it because if we don’t take care of this land, we don’t eat. And neither do you.”

The truth is, no one has more riding on the health of the land than the people who work it.

Farmers test their soil, check their water usage, and walk their fields. They keep pollinators in mind. They map out their spraying so that beneficial bugs don’t get wiped out. They understand how weather patterns shift and how pests adapt. They make decisions day by day, field by field because there’s no reset button when something goes wrong.

And while the rest of the world talks about sustainability in boardrooms and branded campaigns, farmers live it, quietly, constantly.

Help a Farmer. Taste the Difference.

When you buy direct from a farmer, you’re doing more than filling your basket—you’re backing the hands that feed your community.

It takes a little planning, sure, but once you’ve had strawberries that smell like summer and taste like sunshine, you’ll never go back.Or corn so fresh it snaps in your hands and needs nothing but a pinch of salt. That’s not just food. That’s timing, care, and flavor the way nature intended.

And here’s the beautiful thing: fresher fruits and vegetables don’t just taste better, they’re better for you. The shorter the time between harvest and plate, the more nutrients your body actually gets.

And lucky for all of us, the season’s just getting started. We’re kicking off the farm stand season with Hauser & Hauser Farms—but they’re just the beginning. All summer, we’ll be sharing local growers and ranchers you can support directly. No middleman. No mystery. Just real food from real people.

So take notes. Make a list. Stock your fridge with intention.

How to Get the Goods from Hauser & Hauser Farms

If you’re already a fan, this is just your seasonal reminder. But if you’re new around here, listen up—and maybe go ahead and stick this page on the fridge.

Hauser & Hauser Farms is where you get the real stuff: sweet corn so good it barely needs butter. Juicy watermelons, local honey, and whatever else the fields feel like giving. They keep their updates flowing on Facebook and Instagram, so give them a follow to stay in the loop.

Facebook: @HauserandHauserFarms

Instagram: @HauserandHauser

652 N Montezuma Castle Hwy, Camp Verde, AZ

928-567-2142

www.hauserandhauserfarms.com

Season: Late June through mid-August (Weather-permitting, of course—Mother Nature’s the real boss out here.)