Texas Working Lands · 1997–2022 · 3.7M acres gone

Texas is losing its farmland faster than it can replace it.

3.7 million acres of Texas working land have been converted to non-agricultural use since 1997 — 1.8 million of them in just the last five years. In the same window, $14.6 billion in agricultural production was lost to drought, heat, and wind. The land that still farms is shrinking every week the McKinney metro pushes north.

3.7M

acres of Texas working
land lost · 1997–2022

1.8M

of those lost in the
last 5 years alone

$14.6B

Texas ag production
losses · 2022–2024

95%

less water used at
2602 Woodlawn vs. field

01 · The Crisis

Three consecutive years of the worst ag losses in America.

Texas agriculture has been structurally exposed to weather risk in a way no other state has matched. The losses are not cyclical — they are accelerating, and they are concentrated in the exact failure modes controlled-environment agriculture is built to remove.

Texas ag production lossesUSD, billions

2022

$4.4B

2023

$6.4B

2024

$3.8B

Three-year total · Texas

$14.6B

What caused the losses

41%

Drought

WATER

19%

Heat

CLIMATE

Wind

STORM

34%

All other causes

MIXED

"Two out of every three dollars lost on a Texas farm was lost to a variable a greenhouse could have controlled."

02 · The Vanishing Corridor

Collin County farmland is becoming subdivisions, not crops.

McKinney was the fastest-growing city in America in 2024. Every year that growth pushes another ring of working ag land into residential classification — and once a parcel leaves the ag rolls, it does not come back. The corridor 2602 Woodlawn sits in is in the last generation of farmable acres this side of the metro edge.

Parcel View · Stylized

What the map has been doing, one parcel at a time.

Each block represents an agricultural parcel in the McKinney / north Collin corridor. Green are still working the land; rust are parcels that left ag classification in the past decade. Gold is 2602 Woodlawn — inside the Agricultural Lifestyle District of the ONE McKinney 2040 plan, still ag-capable, still defensible.

2602

Working ag

Left ag · now residential

2602 Woodlawn

Collin County · Ag Acres Under Pressure

A corridor that has been shedding farmland for 15 years.

2010

Baseline

2015

−14%

2020

−33%

2024

−48%

The statute was written for this exact pattern. HB 43 authorizes AgPro grants for maintaining agricultural uses of land — and in the McKinney corridor, that phrase describes a narrow, closing window. Parcels that transition out do not transition back. The grant is for the ones that still can.

03 · The Answer

Same food. A fraction of the water.

In a state where water scarcity caused the largest share of the losses, the question stops being "how do we grow more" and starts being "how do we grow the same with less." Controlled-environment aquaponics is the answer that actually shows up on the water meter.

Field Production

24+ acre-feet
of water.

24+

acre-feet / year

The open-field baseline to grow 37,000 lbs of leafy greens in North Texas — exposed to the same drought, heat, and wind that drove two-thirds of the $14.6B loss.

2602 Woodlawn · Controlled Environment

1.2 acre-feet
of water.

1.2

acre-feet / year

The same 37,000 lbs of annual leafy-green output, produced inside a climate-controlled building on recirculated water from the natural spring — weather-independent and auditable on a meter.

95%

less water to produce the identical annual output. In a drought-led loss economy, this is not an incremental improvement — it is the structural change HB 43 exists to fund.

04 · The Water Comes From The Land

A natural spring, under the oxbow.

Aerial view of the natural spring channel flowing through mature tree canopy at 2602 Woodlawn

Aerial · spring channel

Northeast of the pond · feeding it 365 days a year.

"Most farms haul their water in. This one has water coming up out of the ground, already clean, already cool, already here."

A natural spring feeds the pond from the northeast corner of the parcel, 365 days a year. The water is cool, shaded by mature canopy, and biologically seeded by decades of riparian contact. It is the kind of water source modern controlled-environment operations pay to engineer — and it is already on site.

The spring is the reason 2602 Woodlawn can credibly claim structural water efficiency. The aquaponic loop pulls from a source that does not depend on drought-year allocations. The recirculating design means every gallon works multiple times before it leaves. The difference between 24 acre-feet and 1.2 acre-feet starts here, under the oxbow.

Location

Northeast of the pond · on-parcel

Feeds

Pond · 365 days a year

Use

Aquaponic recirculating loop · greenhouse makeup

Dependency

Independent of municipal drought allocations

05 · What The Record Still Says

17.38 acres currently classified Residential.

On Collin County's own books, this parcel has no agricultural value. That is the state of the ledger for thousands of acres at the edge of the metro — land that was farmed, reclassified during the development wave, and is now carried as residential even while the ground itself is still capable. The record reflects how the land is zoned, not what it can grow.

Collin Central Appraisal District · Parcel Record Source · Collin CAD, 2026

Parcel ID

2802080

Classification

C1 · Residential Single Family

Agricultural Value

Improvement Value

Acreage

17.38 acres

Local Plan Context

ONE McKinney 2040 · Ag Lifestyle District

On The Books

Residential-classified parcel · $0 ag value · adjacent to residential expansion

→

On The Ground

Natural spring · mature canopy · oxbow pond · capable of active aquaponics and poultry production

06 · Three Shifts Already Underway

What this land can do differently.

The case for keeping land like this in production is not aspirational. It is operational. Every component is specific, measurable, and already represented on working facilities in Texas and elsewhere.

Weather-independent production.

A controlled-environment greenhouse produces leafy greens 365 days a year. Drought, heat, and wind — the three variables that drove two-thirds of the state's losses — stop mattering at the fence line.

365-day output · weather-independent

Water at a fraction of the field.

Recirculating aquaponics on spring-fed water produces 37,000 lbs of leafy greens annually on roughly 1.2 acre-feet — 95% less than the open-field baseline for the same output.

1.2 ac-ft vs. 24+ ac-ft · same yield

Local supply, shortened.

Fresh produce and protein produced inside the DFW metro reduces North Texas dependence on out-of-state supply chains and shortens the distance between harvest and table to a single delivery window.

Harvest to porch · same-day

07 · The Window Is Closing

Know where your food still comes from.

The Collin County ag corridor is shrinking on a schedule no one has slowed. The parcels that still have water on-site, canopy, and enough acreage to produce at scale are a dwindling set — and every year fewer of them stay capable of farming at all.

This page exists to make that visible. If the numbers here matter to you, or you want to visit the land, reach out.

sandeep@2602woodlawn.com→ The Land & VAC Principle→ The Intelligence Stack→ DFW Distribution & Drone Corridor→