Milking the land

In the wake of the rezoning of 104 acres of the 1,000-acre Main Station Farm to commercial development, some members of the community feel as though the Reno City Council and the University of Nevada, Reno have betrayed them.

Amber Sallaberry, co-founder and general manager of the Great Basin Community Food Co-op, said that community concerns were not heard.

“UNR is a land grant university, and we, as constituents, should have a say in this decision,” Sallaberry said. “UNR is treating it as their private ATM machines, so they can pay off debt.”

She expressed that she was frustrated and disheartened by the decision.

“Ultimately, as our city leaders, they should make visionary, large picture decisions for our community as a whole,” Sallaberry said. “I’m super disappointed in our leadership right now, and I feel sad saying that.”

Marc Johnson, UNR’s president, said that the university took community opinion into account in their decision through “a large public forum and a number of small group meetings.”

“In the process, although the position of the opposition to the zoning did not change, we were able to address a lot of these issues,” Johnson said.

Sallaberry is worried the community is being stripped of a huge asset with this rezoning. She said the land at Main Station Farm has an incredible amount of biomass activity that is important to sustainable growing systems, particularly in the parcel. Its existence means farmers don’t need to use many chemicals or artificial amendments to the soil. These high levels are because the land is on a flood plain, and Sallaberry said it would take about 50 to 60 years for the kind of biomass activity in that area to be emulated in other areas, and even in other plots on that farm.

Sallaberry also voiced concerns for Wolf Pack Meats, the only USDA-certified slaughter and meat-packing facility in the area. She believes having businesses 100 feet away will ultimately cause its closure.

Johnson said he didn’t see any future threats to the facility because it has a legal right to be there since it is preexisting, and there have been odor complaints before.

During the Council meeting, Johnson pointed to the High Desert Farming Initiative to answer concerns about sustainable growing education being discontinued by this rezoning. It will consist of six hoop houses and a greenhouse. Johnson said it will be used “to demonstrate how you can make a viable business at fairly low cost with these technologies” and to be an example of local food production.

This project has taken longer than expected, but Sam Males, the state director for Nevada Small Business Development Center, said ground will be broken on the project in the next couple of weeks, and he hopes construction will be done by the end of June. This project will exist on only one acre of land, but Males expects it “to expand if it grows like [he] thinks it will.”

Johnson also said that there are currently no “immediate plans to develop the 104 acres,” and the rest of the Main Station Farm will continue to be used for agricultural research and education.