SAFFORD — The Venue on Safford’s Main Street was filled with people Thursday who heard Bryant Ambelang, the executive chairman of NatureSweet, explain his company’s decision to sell some of its Bonita operation to a company that wishes to grow medical-grade cannabis.
The room was overwhelmingly supportive, with most attendees being current employees of NatureSweet who were recently informed that, without the sale, NatureSweet would close down the Bonita operation in July, thus ending jobs.
“We want to make sure the . . . elected officials know how important it is to take care of good-paying jobs in our community,” said Martin Hernandez with the United Food Commercial Workers Union 99. “We’re all for, in a healthy economy, jobs that pay good, that provide for families from both sides of the county.”
The issue, Ambelang said, is that growing the single crop of tomatoes in the greenhouses promotes disease, which has caused the operation to lose money each year. Diversification — with another company growing cannabis on one of the sites — will provide an influx of cash and reduce risk of disease, allowing NatureSweet to establish a research and development operation for other crops.
Ambelang explained how deactivating the Bonita plant would reduce the amount of taxes he will continue to pay the county, reducing collections by Bonita School by upward of $600,000 and reducing taxes paid to Eastern Arizona College by at least $300,000 annually.
Ambelang also touched on the Graham County Board of Supervisors’ recent approval of a re-zoning to allow an outdoor marijuana grow in Eden, saying property owners should have a right to use their property to its best use.
“The more that we can get the facts out about what there is . . . at stake, then the better informed the community can be and then they can make a decision for their supervisors,” Ambelang said, adding that each member of the board has been willing to talk with him about the issue.
Also at the meeting was Fran van Straalen, one of the principals of Bayacan, the company seeking to buy Site Six at the Bonita operation in order to grow medical-grade cannabis. He said there would be no processing or outside sales at the facility, only growing.
When asked if there’s a way to ensure that a significant number of employees hired — 300 to start and 600 at build-out — come from northern Graham County, van Straalen said there is an “opportunity.”
“I think we will work on the list of names and addresses that we collected (at a 2020) job fair (in Safford) and start from there. Hopefully, NatureSweet will be able to hold their employees and I think there’s an opportunity for us to hire from Graham County.”
To grow cannabis in Graham County the land must be zoned unlimited manufacturing land use (M-X), which would require a change in zoning for the greenhouse operation in Bonita.
That zoning change was endorsed by the Graham County Planning and Zoning Commission and approved by the Board of Supervisors for the Eden operation, but denial was recommended by the Planning and Zoning Commission for Bayacan’s proposed Bonita operation.
Bayacan withdrew its re-zoning application before the Board of Supervisors could take action. Bayacan can re-start the re-zoning application process at any time.
