County Listed in Governor’s Disaster Decree : Freeze: The state of emergency will aid only those growers who were already on the verge of bankruptcy, official says.

Ventura was one of 17 counties statewide included Friday in Gov. Pete Wilson’s disaster declaration, but area officials said they fear that few growers here who suffered crop damage will benefit from any financial aid that might become available.

The state of emergency will help only those who were already on the verge of bankruptcy, Earl McPhail, Ventura County agricultural commissioner, said. The declaration opens the way for federal low-income loans to small growers who have been turned down by their banks.

McPhail said he hoped that federal eligibility guidelines would be eased. “Then some people could really get some of the help they need,” McPhail said.

McPhail had estimated crop losses from the four-day December freeze in Ventura County at $100 million. But he said Friday that he will probably revise that figure to reflect even higher losses when he addresses county supervisors Tuesday.

Rob Brokaw, whose family grows nursery stock, citrus, avocado and specialty fruit in the county, said the disaster loan program is designed more to help family farmers in the Midwest than California growers.

“My great fear is that this is a political exercise and that we have a lot of political hay made out of granting these sources of relief only to find that we just don’t have access to the funds,” he said.

Restricting eligibility “could be a good way to have very little payout on this disaster,” Brokaw said.

Wilson’s declaration of a state of emergency Friday came three weeks after the beginning of the Dec. 21 freeze. Officials have called it the worst freeze in Ventura County in more than 50 years.

The chill, which sent temperatures plummeting to 15 degrees in some county orchards, wiped out nearly a quarter of the county’s $164-million lemon crop and killed about a quarter of the county’s newly planted lemon trees, McPhail said. Mature trees came through the frost better, depending on the location of the orchard, he said.

The freeze also ruined a third of the orange and avocado crops, and a smaller percentage of strawberries and other commodities. It burned and curled leaves, creating patches of dried golden and brick-colored trees in orchards that were a deep glossy green only three weeks ago.

“Some of the orchards look like somebody has sprayed them with herbicide to deliberately kill them,” Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, said.

Wilson will follow his emergency declaration with a request to President Bush to declare the state a federal disaster area, Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) said. A federal declaration would increase the amount of money available for low-interest loans and grants, expand the eligibility requirements to include more area growers and extend unemployment benefits for farm workers from 26 to 39 weeks, he said.

“It was a devastating frost for many of the ranchers and farm workers and we need to respond with resources,” O’Connell said.

The freeze closed at least one large county citrus-packing plant in Santa Paula, and another announced plans to do the same. Officials had no clear estimate on the number of farm workers and agricultural industry employees who would be thrown out of work by the freeze, but Laird said it would be in the hundreds.

In conjunction with other social service agencies and farm leaders, the Center for Employment Training in Oxnard has set up a hot line for laid-off farm workers to inquire about employment, medical, welfare or food programs, center director Shirley Ortiz said. The hot line at 487-9821 will be staffed with bilingual workers.

Times staff writer Psyche Pascual contributed to this story.

Freeze: Statewide impact assessed. D1