CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS GOVERNOR : Wilson Plows Under Prop. 128 in Talks With Farmers

In territory where Proposition 128, the sweeping environmental initiative called “Big Green” conjures up fears of unemployment, Sen. Pete Wilson on Saturday offered a dire assessment of its impact.

“Very harmful,” said the Republican candidate for governor, making some of his toughest criticisms of the initiative.

“There is a rigidity in (the initiative) that poses a very real peril,” Wilson told farmers and reporters in a lettuce field near here.

The initiative, which would ban offshore oil drilling, protect old forests and--most important to farming interests here--eliminate cancer-causing pesticides, appears to have caught the fancy of some urban areas, as well as the endorsement of Democratic nominee for governor Dianne Feinstein.

However, here and in the fertile Central Valley, it is seen by some as far more of a threat than any pest.

Wilson made a point Saturday of calling the initiative the biggest problem facing California agriculture. He proposed that the state adopt pesticide restrictions linked to levels of exposure, rather than outlaw any, as the initiative proposes to do over time.

At stops here, in Fresno and in the town of Shafter outside Bakersfield, Wilson positioned himself as a defender of the family farmer.

“They’re not interested in poisoning people for profit, and that’s how it’s being portrayed, which I think is monumentally unfair,” Wilson said.

As have other opponents of the far-reaching measure, Wilson focused much of his criticism on Assemblyman Tom Hayden, (D-Santa Monica), one of its authors. Wilson accused Hayden of launching the effort to ease himself into a new job--environmental advocate, a position that would be created by Big Green.

Drawing snickers from about 50 farmers gathered in Shafter, Wilson renamed the initiative “SNEATH--the Secret New Employment Act for Tom Hayden.”

This being a campaign defined largely by television, Wilson interspersed his policy pronouncements with photo sessions that kept bands of competing television crews happy and Wilson’s farmer guests giggling.

In Shafter, he hopped aboard a new, apple-green cotton picker borrowed for the event. Because the crop was a few weeks from maturity, he did not pick cotton--but later made up for that by plowing about 50 feet of lettuce furrows aboard a tractor in Salinas.

In Fresno, the crop of choice was grapes, already picked and well on the way to becoming raisins. Wilson took lessons in the practice of flipping a tray of grapes so that the underside of the bunches could face the sun.

“Very much adequate,” commented one of Wilson’s teachers, raisin farmer Rob Kerizian, on the senator’s style.

The Central Valley is important political turf, and never more so than when two candidates are running neck and neck as are Wilson and Feinstein.

Feinstein had enjoyed some popularity here early on, but it appears to have withered some with her endorsement of Big Green. Wilson campaigned here Saturday with a pointed selection of friends--members of the California Farm Bureau and Western Growers Assn., who announced their groups’ endorsements of his candidacy.

While farmers were much heartened by Wilson’s stand against Big Green, they did not get to hear another hoped-for statement--an endorsement of their competing measure, the so-called CAREFUL initiative that is Proposition 135 on the ballot.

“At this point I have not supported CAREFUL . . . and may go through the campaign in that fashion,” Wilson told reporters in Fresno.

Bob Vice, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation, said later, “We’re gonna keep working on him.”

Several farmers chalked up Wilson’s stand to politics and said it was unlikely to hurt him nearly as much as Feinstein’s endorsement of Big Green would hurt her.

“He’s got a campaign to get through,” said Michael V. Durando, president of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League, which represents growers.

“That’s one item on a big plate of things.”

The political delicacy of pesticide-related issues was obvious in Wilson’s approach. He forcefully denounced Big Green only in response to reporters’ questions, in keeping with his campaign-long effort to downplay the initiative.

In prepared remarks, Wilson instead ticked off areas in which he has been helpful to farmers, citing immigration law, overseas marketing and exports.

He vowed as governor to travel abroad to foreign markets with a message from California growers: “You let me into your market; I will let you into mine.”