University of Nevada Coooperative Extension

Program Description
Nevada is the fastest growing State in the nation, with 2.3 million people in 2004. 94% of the people live in cities larger than 25,000 people. Las Vegas alone is growing at the rate of 6,000 per month and opens a school a month. The other major urban area (Reno / Sparks / Carson City) is also growing rapidly. Only 21% of Nevada’s residents were born in the state.

Nevada’s landscape is largely arid to semi-arid desert rangelands, with croplands adjacent to the limited number of rivers and streams. Approximately 87% of Nevada’s 70 million acres is federally owned. The Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service are the main government agencies responsible for management of approximately 76% of Nevada’s total land area.
Only 9% of Nevada’s land area is farmland, of which 78.6% is pasture or range, 14.9% is cropland, 0.7% woodland and 5.9% is house lots, ponds, roads, etc. Over 90% of Nevada is considered range, with approximately 80% of the land available for livestock grazing at certain times of the year.

Farming/ranching in Nevada is mostly in large operations and small ranchettes, with few small farms in the traditional sense in other parts of the United States. Of Nevada’s 3,000 farms/ranches, 55% are under 99 acres with 11% being over 2,000 acres. Yet the average size of farms/ranches is 2,115 acres. In 2003, the top five agricultural commodities were cattle and calves, hay, dairy products, onions, and potatoes.

Contact
John E. Burton, Assistant Director
Dean & Director’s Office / MS 404,
Reno, NV 89557-0106.
Phone: (775) 784-7070
Fax: (775) 784-7079
Email: BurtonJ@unce.unr.edu