Soils in the state are often lacking in nutrients and organic matter and this is a particular problem for small farms. Cropping practices that remove all the vegetative matter further reduce fertility by eliminating the possibility for organic matter to be retained and accumulated. Much of the land in small farms depends on natural precipitation for moisture, because the fixed costs to install irrigation are beyond the capability of small farms as they may be too small to reach the minimum scale of production required to make irrigation profitable.