Arizona agriculture employs more than 138,000 people in Arizona and has a $23.3 billion impact on Arizona’s economy. With the millions of pounds of vitamin rich produce, meat, eggs and dairy products - including 12% (#3) of US fruits and vegetables - produced in the state, Arizonans should not be hungry, yet 1 in 6 Arizonans is affected by food insecurity. An alarming 500,000 Arizonans will face a diet-related illness by 2030. Currently, almost 30% of Arizonans are obese.

2M (one in every seven) Arizonans struggle with food insecurity - the lack of consistent access to adequate food - including 226K children. 46.3% of AZ households receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or EBT, benefits have children. 29% of AZ public school students are eligible for free lunch. $438M more per year is needed to help Arizonans meet their food needs.

Arizona’s wide open spaces come with a cost: the 700K Arizonans that reside in “food deserts” (>1 mile from fresh, healthy food), can travel up to 100 miles to access nutritious food options. Phoenix alone has 43 (75%) of Maricopa County’s food deserts.

Arizona's food growers – family fields, corporate operations, tribal farms – have a rich history spanning thousands of years, but are all threatened by the same things: a harsher climate and limited water resources. Water cuts and unresolved tribal water rights create systemic food production vulnerabilities.

About half of Arizona is semiarid, one-third is arid, and the remainder is humid. Decades of warming climate, megadrought and dwindling water supplies mean that impending water supply cuts will fall heavily on agriculture, which accounts for 72% of the state's water use (municipal 22%, industrial 6%). Water use has actually decreased in Arizona since 1980 due to the Groundwater Management Act, even though the state’s population has grown significantly.

Water in the Colorado River is historically overallocated to the seven states in its basin. Nevertheless, federal water allotment cuts were imposed in 2022 and 2023: Arizona will lose about 1/5 of its share. The Colorado River supplies about 36% of Arizona’s water (groundwater 41%, in-state rivers 18%, reclaimed water 5%).

The Salt River and Verde River, which provide more than half of Phoenix’s water, depend on melting snow, which will continue to become more scarce due to climate change.

Arizona is home to three major universities, including ASU, ranked #1 for nine years in a row for innovation. Established in 1920, Maricopa Community Colleges has evolved into one of the nation's largest and most innovative community college systems, serving the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and beyond. Nevertheless, in a US News & World Report study, Arizona ranks at the bottom of the 50 US states in education overall, and #48 for PreK-12. Arizona had the third-worst dropout rate and the highest pupil-to-teacher ratio and student-to-counselor ratio.

Many Arizona teachers got a raise over the past year, after lawmakers allocated over $500M toward education in the state budget. The state is still facing its eighth straight year of a severe teacher shortage. About 2,200 teacher openings remain vacant, and about half of the teachers who are currently filling in do not meet the state’s teaching certification requirements.

The estimated number of home-educated students in Arizona is 37K and rising. More parents are choosing to homeschool their children for a variety of reasons, including dissatisfaction with the public school system, a desire to provide a more religious/moral education, and a belief that home schooling can provide a more customized and individualized learning experience for their child.