“From experience I can tell you it has a much richer flavor than a standard pumpkin,” she says. Later, a merchant comes by to check out his stock of barbecue sauce that he now sells at the Food Hub and chats with Kelly about recent sales. According to RCAC loan officer Darryl English, the Fallon Food Hub has developed relationships with local farmers and producers so they might showcase and sell their wares. The small business loan, he says, is an economic stimulus to Fallon and rural Churchill County. It also reflects how business leaders in this rural community are focused on self-sufficiency. Nathan G. Strong, executive director of the Churchill Economic Development Authority, notes two areas where Fallon and Chur- chill County are independent: agriculture and renewable energy. It is Nevada’s top dairy producer and home to the Dairy Farmers of America’s whole milk dry powder production facility. It is also home to the emerging gluten-free and drought tolerant Eragros- tis tef grain industry. And its triple hybrid power plant, the only one in the world, generates 10 times more energy than its residents consume. The Fallon Downtown Merchants Association aims to breathe new life into its downtown. The Food Hub is essential to this; members reason that with economic revitalization comes healthy residents. Nearly 30 percent of Churchill County’s residents are diagnosed as obese, nearly 9 percent of its adults have diabetes and nearly 30 percent have high blood pressure. These rates are all slightly higher than the state’s averages. The Fallon Food Hub Cooperative suspects that these rates may have risen following grocery market closures in the area. “They expect that the Fallon Food Hub will provide access to a source of healthy food products on the east side,” English says, “and especially to the low-income customers.” It also gives area resi- dents another reason, to go downtown and this can help revive the historic corridor. As of October 2017, the Food Hub could count 116 active members. The timing was right to invest in the Food Hub in light of the farm- to-fork movement, which has dovetailed, too, with rural tourism, and more people wanting to know where their food comes from. As Fallon Convention and Tourism Authority executive director for tourism and special events, Jane Moon, says, “Farm-to-fork was already a lifestyle for us. What you see around the nation is the way we’ve lived for years. It’s something embedded in our community.” Among other beneficiaries and participants around Fallon is Rick Lattin, a fourth generation farmer whose 400-acre farm includes one of the most elaborate and oldest corn mazes west of the Missis- sippi River, as well as an on-site bakery and, in the fall, a pumpkin patch. Lattin is also well-revered for his heirloom peppers which, as he tells it, a defecting Romanian acrobat introduced in the re- gion. Most of the produce in the Community Supported Agricul- ture Basket the Food Hub sells comes from Lattin’s certified organ- ic farm. One sunny October afternoon, as he leads guests around the pumpkin patch, he describes how when he was a child, there were still sand dunes around his family’s farm. “Yes, farming in the desert,” he says with a nod and some irony, re- membering his youth. But then he adds, with a measure of genuine modesty that today, he delivers his produce to 35 restaurants and has 10 loyal catering clients, as well as his plentiful crops sold at the Fallon Food Hub.■ The small business loan … is an economic stimulus to Fallon and rural Churchill County 11 opposite left: Kelli Kelly, Executive Director, Fallon Food Hub opposite right: Don Keele, Farm Manager, Lattin Farms