Farmers’ Tenuous Grip on Land Slips as Building Thrives

The Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, nearly 70 acres of free enterprise billed as the world’s largest indoor mall, is one of the most important business centers in the South Bay.

But before the retail giant started going up in the mid-1960s, the site was used for another industry that was once just as important to the South Bay.

It was a bean field.

Indeed, agriculture was the predominant industry in the South Bay during the first half of this century, with farms and ranches sprawling over thousands of acres. They produced a cornucopia of vegetables, but the main crops were beans, strawberries and peas.

Today, however, nearly all South Bay farms have been replaced by houses, shopping centers, factories and other developments as landowners have found more lucrative uses for their property. Only a little more than 300 acres remain devoted to farming, agriculture officials say, and that figure is expected to decrease.

All to Be Gone Soon

“In 10 or 15 years there won’t be any farms left” in the South Bay, said Ron Allen, an inspector for the Los Angeles County Agriculture Department whose territory includes most of the area.

“I don’t even want to think about it,” said Tom Ishibashi, referring to the future of the farm he has worked for 35 years on Torrance Airport property. In that period, the land available to him for farming has shrunk from 200 to 80 acres, the rest covered by homes, restaurants and other developments. Agriculture officials say he is the only commercial strawberry grower remaining in the South Bay.

But he is not the only farmer facing extinction.

“I’m slowly being phased out,” said Roy Pursche, 60, whose farm near Playa del Rey has been reduced from 350 acres in 1946 to less than 100. Pursche leases the land from the Summa Corp., which is planning a multimillion-dollar office complex nearby. He expects the company to develop his land eventually.

Mas Ishibashi, a cousin of Tom Ishibashi, who farms next to Marineland on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, said his vegetable and flower business has been reduced to no more than 20 acres from the 500 he plowed before World War II. He expects that Marineland, his neighbor and landlord, will eventually seek a more profitable use for the land.

Too Late to Change

Most South Bay farmers say it is too late to reverse the trend against them.

“Something should have been done in the ‘50s, before development started,” Pursche said. He said a greenbelt set aside for farming could have been put in place during the early waves of urbanization and would have enhanced the area.

“We’re boxed in the city,” said Ed Blas, co-owner of T&T; Farm in Carson. His 150-acre vegetable farm is surrounded by housing and industry.

“It’s actually a matter of time before all our land will be filled with residential and commercial space,” Blas said. “We have no security about the future.”

His family company owns more than half of the land it farms. Eventually, he said, a developer will make an offer that is too good to refuse, especially in light of the unsteady return on farming.

Tax Advantage

Unless farm land is sold, the owner--if it is the same person or company who owned it before the passage of Proposition 13--does not have to worry about high tax rates based on neighboring development. Proposition 13, approved by voters in 1978, rolled back property valuations to 1975 levels; if there has been no change in the way land is used or if it has not been sold, the tax is based on that valuation plus an annual 2% assessment increases. When land is sold, however, it is reassessed on the basis of its sale price and “highest and best use,” said Leonard Wheeler, director of evaluations for the Los Angeles County assessor’s office.

In determining the best use, an assessor looks at the land’s zoning and potential for rezoning, how surrounding land is used and environmental and other restrictions on development, Wheeler said.

He said farmers often work a piece of property until it reaches what they consider peak resale value and then sell it.

Agriculture has diminished so much in the South Bay that many residents are not aware of the farms that remain.

“A lot of people don’t believe that I farm in this area,” said Tom Ishibashi. When he tells people that the produce from his stand on Crenshaw Boulevard in Torrance is locally grown, “they look at me and ask, ‘ Where did you grow it?’ ”

Downward Trend

Statistics from the county agricultural commissioner’s office illustrate the trend. In 1940, about 316,000 acres of Los Angeles County was being farmed. Fifteen years later, the total acreage was down to about 205,000 acres. By 1984, the figure had dwindled to less than 40,000 acres.

Rising land values were the main reason. For example, coastal land like Mas Ishibashi’s cost about $200 an acre in the 1930s, said Barbara Pazanowski, broker for BLP Realty in Palos Verdes Estates. The same land rose in value to $30,000 to $50,000 an acre during the development boom of the 1950s and ‘60s. Today, she estimates, coastal land in the Palos Verdes Peninsula goes for $150,000 an acre and up. The highest-priced parcel she knows of--less than one acre--was sold last year for $300,000.

A strawberry farming operation owned by Cottone Brothers of Torrance recently was moved to Ontario after the Santa Fe Co., owners of the land the Cottones leased, sold it to the developers of the Park Del Amo office and residential complex, said Tom Cottone, one of several brothers involved in the operation.

The same mild weather that attracted farmers to the South Bay also attracted developers with dreams of housing and businesses to serve and employ the growing population, longtime farmers said. In some ways, however, the boom made the land less suitable for farming.

“The use of pesticides, and tractor noises, bothered neighbors,” said Hunter Johnson, a former farm inspector who is now a farming specialist for the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Crops Damaged

Industrial air pollution damaged some vegetable crops so much that they could not be grown until pollution controls were adopted.

Even though the soil he farms was rich at one time, it is now “not very good to bad,” Pursche said. So much land has been paved over that rainfall and runoff flood the remaining farmland, he said.

There are few suitable sites elsewhere in the county for a farming operation, said Pursche, who also farms in Seal Beach and Huntington Beach.

Mas Ishibashi said he will probably relocate if Marineland decides to sell the remaining chunk of his farm. The 73-year-old vegetable and flower farmer said he owns a parcel close to Portuguese Bend, but has not farmed there because it lacks the irrigation and other utilities available on the property he leases.

He acknowledges that farming is increasingly impractical in such a developed area.

“I started farming here when we had a dirt road and no cars,” Ishibashi recalled. Today, several high-priced homes, a highway and Marineland surround his farm.

$307,549 in ’84

In spite of the decline, in 1984 the South Bay produced $307,549 worth of crops, including nursery stocks, the agricultural commissioner’s office said. The largest crops were lima beans and barley, with 65 and 40 acres respectively. Other items grown locally include Christmas trees, snap beans and other vegetables.

The figures do not include small operations such as backyard farming at private residences.

The number of farmers in the area is difficult to estimate because not all operations are registered with farmers’ associations, and the agricultural commissioner’s office does not keep such records.

Farm inspector Allen said the main economic problem facing small farmers--besides competition for use of their land--is the stiff competition from foreign and some eastern growers who have lower overhead.

“Many are getting pushed out of the market,” he said.

Marketplace Limited

The local farmers’ marketplace is limited. Unable to compete with big farms in marketing their products, most small farmers must sell foodstuffs in roadside stands and city-sponsored farmers’ markets.

“The small farmers’ overhead costs are too high” in comparison with large operations, said John Pusey of the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Larger farms have space and money to grow a broader variety of crops, providing a form of insurance against bad harvests, said Blas of T&T; Farms. Losses from low-selling crops can be offset by profits from higher-priced produce.

Rose Munoz, manager of the Torrance Farmers Market, said the city is trying to bring in more local farmers. Of 26 farmers who participate each week in the Torrance market, only two or three are from the South Bay. Some South Bay farmers said they participate in other, longer-established area markets, however.

(The farm crisis in the Midwest generally is not affecting South Bay farmers, said David Millhauser, urban agriculture coordinator for the UC Cooperative Extension. “It’s two entirely different situations,” he said, because South Bay farmers generally have a much smaller debt burden.)

Despite the problems of urban farming, there are still advantages to farming in the South Bay, Blas said.

‘Weather Is Great’

“Southern California weather is great,” he said. “Some vegetables can’t be grown in Central or Northern California because of frost.”

And those who grow flowers, like the Ishibashis, have a ready market with so many people around.

But they acknowledge that agriculture will never have the impact on the area that it had in previous decades.

“My grandmother used to tell me that a ride from downtown L.A. to Long Beach went through nothing but orange groves for two hours,” said Victor Bogdanoff, manager of the San Pedro farmers market.

Said Pursche of the homes, businesses and people that replaced the orange groves: “They call it progress.”