Tough Row to Hoe on Area Farms : Number of County Growers Declines With Crop Prices

It’s been a tough decade for Blair Smith.

The Santa Ana farmer, one of a rapidly dwindling number of urban growers, surveys his six acres of various vegetables and tells a visitor that he can “almost guarantee that after the first of the year, this won’t be here.”

In the last three weeks, for example, 10 developers have looked over the acreage, which was owned and farmed by Smith’s parents beginning in 1907.

Smith’s story illustrates both the passing of an era in Orange County and the larger problems faced in recent years by farmers across the nation.

High interest rates and low crop prices have driven Smith far into debt and Orange County’s rampant urbanization has made the remaining vegetable farms seem like living museums. The upheaval in American agriculture has left Smith in debt and the disappearance of farmland in Orange County is pressuring him off the land he has known since birth.

Orange County was once one of the most productive farming areas in the nation. As late as 1946, for example, grazing and farming utilized about 267,000 acres, or about 54% of the total county land area. By 1984, just 30,708 acres were in agriculture. And between 1950 and 1970, the population of Orange County quadrupled.

Like many of the nation’s farmers, the 59-year-old Smith did well in the early 1970s and used his profits to buy more land, mostly in the Santa Maria area. But then prices fell--drastically in some cases--and Smith and other farmers were stuck with large loans at high interest rates. Commodity prices fell and stayed down and Smith couldn’t pay either his taxes or his loan payments.

“Tough times are the name of the game (in farming),” said Jim Harnett, chief deputy agricultural commissioner for the county.

Last week, Smith finally finished paying about $30,000 in back taxes and penalties but doesn’t know when he will be able to begin paying the $500,000 in loans he borrowed “to survive.”

In the late ‘70s, “it was easy to lose $100,000 a year,” he said.

Other than “taking a sleeping bag to the beach in Mexico for a few days,” Smith hasn’t had a vacation since 1976.

Surrounded by businesses and housing developments, Smith also has to cope with urban problems on his rural island. He motions to bean plants that have been cut down and irrigation pipes that have been smashed. “Vandals wreak havoc all the time, running over boxes . . . . They take keys from my trucks and just throw them away.” Smith shakes his head, a country man that a city has grown around. “There’s too many people. Being a farmer, you kind of like it in the open.”

Smith’s browned face and work-toughened hands testify to a life on the land. In describing setback after setback, Smith usually ends up grinning. “Even though I scream that I’m quitting, the next day looks brighter.”

This year, finally, does look brighter. Smith’s black radishes, leeks, kohlrabi, celery root and other specialty crops are selling for a profit, giving him hope that he may be able to repay some of his loans.

Smith sells some of his crop, which includes melons and several varieties of beans, at his roadside stand, but the bulk is sold through one-day sales at a circuit throughout the metropolitan area.

But Smith thinks his farm has been “on borrowed time” for some years. The land that once provided fertile soil for 50 varieties of fruit trees will probably soon provide simply a stable subsoil for an industrial, commercial or residential development. Smith figures the land will fetch about $800,000 an acre, far more than Smith received when he sold the land and leased it back several years ago.

Smith’s 15 workers, few of whom speak English, will seek work elsewhere, joining the exodus of farms and farm workers from the county.

“There are a number of (county farmers) who say if they don’t make money this year they will quit,” observed Mark Lauman, who sells pesticides and other chemicals to Orange County farmers.