ELECTIONS : PROP. 128 : Farm Families to Take Aim at ‘Big Green’ in Los Angeles

A force of up to 200 Ventura County farm families is being organized this week for a door-to-door campaign in the San Fernando Valley as part of a statewide effort to block passage of the “Big Green” initiative on the November ballot.

The Ventura County Farm Bureau and state organizers are recruiting the local farm families to walk the suburban Los Angeles neighborhoods on the weekend of Oct. 27.

Organizers say they will be part of a group of up to 1,500 to 2,000 growers from Fresno to San Diego counties going door-to-door in the Valley.

Another group of 1,500 growers from Fresno north to the Oregon border will campaign against the ballot initiative in the San Francisco-area community of Concord Saturday, the organizers added.

While voters are told by the growers how they believe Proposition 128 will hurt the California and Ventura County agriculture industry, the growers will also be attempting to amass support for a counter initiative, Proposition 135.

Ventura County residents have contributed $100,000 to a statewide campaign fund that has topped $3 million, Proposition 135 supporters said.

Called the “Careful” initiative, Proposition 135 would require increased testing for illegal pesticide residues on food, but would be far less restrictive on growers’ practices than Proposition 128.

Proposition 128 would ban an estimated 350 potentially cancer-causing pesticides now used on food crops. Proposition 128 also contains several provisions unrelated to agriculture.

If both measures pass and Proposition 135 passes by more votes than Proposition 128, Proposition 135 provisions pertaining to agriculture would prevail and the rest of Proposition 128 would stand.

“People just don’t understand what they are doing with Proposition 128,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “It’s really scary.”

Laird said there are no alternative pest-control tools available to farmers for many of the chemicals that would be banned under Proposition 128. That could result in a substantial cost to area growers and knock them out of foreign markets, he said.

Laird said growers agree that the agriculture industry must reduce its use of chemicals on food crops and monitor water pollution from crop runoff more carefully.

“There is a very clear direction toward less and less use of pesticides,” he said. “The lack of speed on this is not reticence on the part of the growers, but the need to remain competitive in the global marketplace.”

Local supporters of Proposition 128 say the agriculture industry must be pushed into reducing its dependence on chemicals.

They cite the success of Oxnard vegetable grower Dean Walsh, who organically farms 23 different row crops on 800 acres.

“We are now achieving good, almost up to conventional standard yields in Ventura County,” Walsh said. He depends on the shaping of the plant bed, soil tilling techniques, composting and crop rotation for much of his pest-control strategy.

Proposition 128 supporters have no war chest to sponsor massive precinct walks, said Marianne Sprinkel, an organic grower from Carpinteria. Sprinkel organized a Big Green party that drew about 35 people and is considering setting up a second event for the Santa Barbara area.

“The whole campaign for 128 is very grass-rootsy,” she said. “We’re hoping that at least three other people will throw parties for their friends, and they will throw parties for their friends.”