Demand for Housing Closes In on Domain of Dairymen

Southern California’s nomadic dairy farmers are prepared to move again.

For the last 25 years they have been concentrated in the Chino area, mostly in a 17,000-acre agricultural preserve known as the Chino “dairylands.”

Before that, the dairies were in southern Los Angeles County--in places like Artesia and Bellflower and Cerritos--until they were pushed out by housing developments.

Now the same thing is beginning to happen in Chino, as the demand for housing in the Inland Empire increases.

“It’s a case of raping really good agricultural land for real estate development,” said Norm van Wyhe, who, with his father-in- law, milks more than 1,100 cows on two farms in the dairylands. “It saddens me to see prime land go first, when there are other alternatives. I think dairymen have a right to sell, but somebody should realize agriculture is still the backbone of this country and not just a necessary evil.”

But with the prospect that dairy property may be worth $50,000 an acre or more, the urge to sell is strong among many of Van Wyhe’s fellow dairymen.

“No one has ever gotten rich pulling teats on a cow,” said Broer Vander Dussen, who owns two dairies and milks 1,900 cows and also deals in dairy real estate. “Dairy farmers get rich on their land, holding cows on it, and then selling when the price is right.

Eager to Expand

“We’re sitting here between four major freeways, two railroads and an international airport,” Vander Dussen said. “It’s a hot spot of the county. A lot of development is ready to move in here.”

The cities of Chino to the west and Ontario to the north are looking at the dairylands covetously, eager to expand their residential neighborhoods.

Both cities recently failed to persuade the Local Agency Formation Commission to allow them to expand their “spheres of influence” to include the dairylands, but these setbacks are regarded as temporary.

California’s 1965 Williamson Act allows local jurisdictions to preserve farmland and control suburban sprawl by establishing agricultural preserves, in which owners pay lower taxes in return for keeping the land in farm production.

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors established the 17,000-acre Chino agricultural preserve in 1968. Additional acreage lies in Riverside County. Within the total preserve there are 368 dairies, and about 300,000 cows, producing more than 75% of Southern California’s milk supply.

The preserve is bounded on the north by Riverside Drive, on the east by Etiwanda Avenue in the city of Mira Loma, on the west by Euclid Avenue, south of the city of Ontario, and on the south by the Santa Ana River. On the northern boundary, along Riverside Drive, new housing tracts stand just across the road from dairies.

Although there have been skirmishes between dairymen and their neighbors over flies, mosquitoes, drainage and odors, that line has held for several years.

But in 1983 a dairyman and real estate developer named Neil Kasbergen, with the help of county planners, spotted a loophole in a recently passed state law and, with the help of county planners, received permission to sell a 300-acre vineyard south of Riverside Drive.

“That was the beginning of the end,” said Geoff Vanden Heuvel, a young dairyman who is bitter about the Kasbergen sale.

“If the preserve does go, it won’t be because of developers,” Vanden Heuvel said. “It will be because certain dairymen wanted to sell out for big bucks.”

Kasbergen defended his actions.

“The time isn’t too far off when they’ll erect a statue to me,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to sell your property for the highest and best use. You’ve got to be able to manipulate your assets.”

As the Kasbergen-Vanden Heuvel exchange suggests, the dairymen are divided on the future of the agricultural preserve.

Those who own large, modern, efficient dairies--like Norm van Wyhe and his father-in-law, James Albers--want to stay where they are.

Even some whose dairies are not that large or efficient would like to remain.

“I love the life,” said Vanden Heuvel, who milks only 120 cows. “It’s long hours and hard work but it sure beats desk jockeying.”

The dairies have provided a comfortable, if hard-working life, centered on family, the Dutch Reformed Church and Christian schools.

“For some, it’s a life style, not a business,” Broer Vander Dussen said. “It’s something most of them have grown into--their grandfather did it, their father did it and now they’re doing it. It’s really all they know.”

However, many dairymen whose facilities are outmoded and inefficient would like to sell and get out. Many of these dairies are in the northern part of the preserve, where development pressure is the most intense.

Albert Briano is one of these.

Barely Breaks Even

Briano milks about 600 cows at two dairies but said he barely breaks even. With more cows he could make money, Briano said, but there is not enough room to modernize and enlarge his dairies.

“I figure I should have the right to sell my property like everybody in California has been able to do from the start of time,” Briano said, with a bit of historical exaggeration. “I don’t tell Albers and Van Wyhe what to do. Why should they tell me what to do?”

Actually, Albers and Van Wyhe agree. They may not approve of Briano’s desire to sell, but they agree he has a perfect right to do so.

Two years of low milk prices and slim profits have made some owners more eager to sell. So has nervousness over the Reagan Administration’s announced intention to eliminate price supports for milk and other farm products.

Briano said 75% of the dairymen in the northern part of the agricultural preserve want to sell.

But Albers said he polled 106 dairymen last summer and found that 100 wanted to stay in the Chino area.

The inability of the dairymen to agree on a unified position has weakened their political position with the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, which must decide the fate of the dairylands.

“I’ve been telling them for years the future of the preserve is in their hands,” said Supervisor Robert O. Townsend, whose district includes the dairylands. “If they’ll just tell us what they want, we’ll do it.”

But Townsend knows that the dairymen are divided, leaving the supervisors free to do as they please with the preserve.

“This is a classic case of economic individualism,” said Chino Mayor Larry Walker. “If the dairymen had held together, they could have done better. But some wanted to sell, so now the whole thing will be lost.”

Report Awaited

County planners are now studying the future of the dairylands, hoping to present a report to the supervisors by the fall, but most dairymen think they know what the result of the study will be.

Broer Vander Dussen figures that at least 4,500 acres will be opened for development in the next three years and that the entire preserve will be gone in 20 years.

Some farms located near the state prisons may be able to survive for many years, dairymen believe, because most developers might pause before building houses next to the prison walls.

But Norm van Wyhe said, “The best we can hope for now is an orderly, block-by-block elimination of the preserve.”

Where to Next?

Where will the dairymen go?

At Flo’s Cafe, next to the runway at the Chino Airport, this is a frequent topic of conversation.

Dairymen gather at Flo’s in mid-morning, after the first round of chores, to discuss dairy prices and the state of the world. Lately the talk often turns to the approaching death of the agricultural preserve and where the dairymen might go next.

Some plan to sell their land and retire.

Some hope to establish new dairies in the San Joaquin Valley, as others have already done. Some will go to the desert, to Victorville or to Barstow, or to the Coachella Valley.

But all agree, with a touch of sadness, that the dairies will scatter and Southern California will never again see the likes of the Chino dairylands.

DAIRY DATA For the Inland Empire, 1984

No. of dairies 368 No. of cows 300,413 Milk produced 519,802,000 gals. Total value $555 million Manure produced 476,000 tons

Source: California Regional Water Quality Control Board