UC Davis and Responsible Growth

UC Davis itself faces continuing challenges to preserving land for field teaching and research. Growing programs, such as primate research; relocating programs, such as the operations and maintenance facilities; new programs, such as University Research Park; and new facilities to house and support staff, faculty and students, such as West Village—all of them will occupy land that was once part of the Davis farming community.

Campus planners foresaw this need for land and either purchased or acquired options on large properties nearby. In 1990, the university purchased the 1,576-acre Russell Ranch, which is today the site of the campus’s Long Term Research on Agricultural Systems (LTRAS) program and a growing riparian reserve along Putah Creek. On Russell Ranch acres not currently needed for university programs, a tenant farmer grows seasonal crops.

A decade later, the university acquired an option on the McConeghy Ranch, a 300-acre tract surrounding the Kidwell Road interchange on Interstate 80 in northeastern Solano County, two miles southwest of the campus. The land presently is used to grow seasonal crops, such as tomatoes and alfalfa.

When the 2003–2015 UC Davis Long Range Development Plan was completed, the campus did not need the McConeghy property for program growth, but the property was ideal for inclusion in an open-space and agricultural buffer envisioned by the campus and the cities of Davis and Dixon. A consortium of parties, led by the state Department of Conservation, recently announced that the land will be permanently preserved in agriculture.

Another tract under option to UC Davis is the Kidwell Ranch. This 550-acre tract on the southern edge of campus also grows seasonal crops. The university is studying whether to buy the ranch.
The 2003–2015 LRDP specifies that whenever prime agricultural land is built on, the campus will permanently protect an equal amount of prime ag land. Therefore, to mitigate for the development of West Village and other programs, 525 acres of farmland elsewhere on campus—at Russell Ranch, Kidwell Ranch or another location—will be permanently preserved in agriculture.

“We’re no different from local cities and counties,” concluded Sid England, campus director of environmental planning. “Despite long-term planning to have adequate land for our research programs and to mitigate for our own development, campus growth still is contributing to the regional loss of prime agricultural land.”

— Sylvia Wright

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