Designer Produce : Farmers of specialty crops have found a niche and are growing in it.

Russ DiLando planted his first purple string bean seeds as an experiment. He was going to use the resulting vegetables as something farmers call “green manure.” He planned to till them back into the ground as fertilizer for his other, more valuable, crops. But then something unexpected happened.

“It was prolific,” DiLando said. “I was getting 60 to 70 pounds of string beans from a couple of rows.”

Thus, the string beans joined the yellow zucchini, Italian sweet peppers, Lisbon lemons and many other specialty products that DiLando grows on his 10-acre farm in upper Ojai.

DiLando is one of a relatively small but important group of farmers and ranchers in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties who are growing and raising unconventional crops and livestock.

A Farming Niche

“Yuppie yummies” is how Dave Buettner, Ventura County’s deputy agricultural commissioner, describes what is being produced. And judging by the proliferation of certified farmers markets in the area, the term may seem appropriate.

The Oxnard market opened earlier this month; the Thousand Oaks market opened in May; the Camarillo market opened in March, and the farmers market in Carpinteria reopened several weeks ago.

But to farmers and ranchers such as Lucy Vanoni, Gordon Kennedy, Ken Shelton and Tova Malmstedt and at Underwood Ranches and Nakamura Farms, it may be a matter of economic survival.

Vanoni grows yellow sweet limes and New Zealand spinach in Saticoy. Kennedy grows Chandler pummelos and blood oranges in Ojai. Shelton, also of Ojai, raises free-range chickens who lay free-range eggs. Malmstedt grows sprouts in Ojai, and the Underwood business in Somis and the Nakamura farm in Oxnard grow a variety of exotic produce.

These and other local specialty growers have found a place in the overall produce market that wasn’t being filled by the larger growers. They found a way to sell produce while avoiding the stiffest competition.

“I’ve always done it this way,” DiLando said. “I don’t have enough acreage to make money on corn. I don’t grow strawberries. Look at what’s happening in Oxnard with the megafarms of strawberries--it would be stupid for me. But a major grower is not going to invest $5,000 to plant something questionable.”

Small Share of Total

Experts say the specialty market in Ventura County is like the specialty market throughout the country in that it doesn’t make up much of a percentage of the overall produce business.

“Speaking solely as an economist . . . it’s hardly a measurable blip in the system,” said Bill Wood, an agricultural economics professor at UC Riverside. At the same time, he said, “some of the specialty crop producers are fairly significant in terms of gross dollar value of what they sell.”

Just ask anyone associated with Underwood Ranches. Even at 300 acres--a large spread compared to most of the other specialty growers--the Underwood folks feel the pressure of having to compete with huge businesses such as Dole that possess as much as 200 times more acreage.

Underwood began selling specialty items eight years ago and now these crops--baby iceberg lettuce, bicolor corn, baby bok choy and Japanese baby turnips among them--account for about two-thirds of the profitable operation. “Up until a couple of years ago, we were growing iceberg lettuce, celery, things like that,” said Minos Athanassiadis, part owner of Underwood.

“We decided we were fighting an uphill battle against companies that were much better equipped than us. . . . We all decided, ‘Let’s concentrate on a small market. Let’s be the best in that market.’ That’s the only way to defend ourselves against the larger growers and produce markets.”

Demand for Seeds

Still, most specialty growers don’t compare in size to Underwood.

Take for instance the 3 1/2 acres and five citrus trees owned by Vanoni. On the five trees she grows loquats, sweet limes and a couple of specialty variety lemons. She thinks the larger companies could grow these rare items, but it’s just not worth their time.

“I don’t think it would be worthwhile for commercial growers unless people become more acquainted with (the citrus) first,” she said. “Like avocados a while back. Nobody knew what they were. Persimmons too. Nobody liked them; now everybody craves them. About six or seven years ago, they were a specialty. I had them then.”

It’s not just small growers who have gotten into the specialty produce field. The seed companies with which they work have found their own niches too.

The Peto Seed Co. of Saticoy was one of the pioneers in hybrid produce, particularly in the development several years ago of the seedless watermelon. And there’s the Santa Clara Chemical & Seed Co. in Oxnard, which provides specialty seeds to a number of growers in the area.

“We’ve been in the specialty end of it since the ‘80s. That’s when radicchio came around,” said Michael Newman, president of the Oxnard company. “It’s one of those niches that has attracted growers because it consists of either new vegetables that have never been marketed or vegetables that they’ve had in their back yard or were grown in the old country.”

And by old country he isn’t referring to Chicago.

Consumers who can remember back to the old days in European or Asian countries make up a good percentage of specialty buyers. Besides that, there’s a whole new segment of the population out there looking for ethnic produce.

“There’s food from all different types of ethnic backgrounds and it’s not just the people of those backgrounds who are eating it,” Newman said.

Wood agreed. “The reason specialty produce has grown so much in the last 10 or 15 years is the ethnic food market,” he said. “The influx of half a million Southeast Asian refugees has led to that produce being available.”

And that doesn’t take into account the cilantro, chilies, peppers and other produce traditional to the Latino market. Beyond variety is the issue of freshness.

“It’s locally produced. It tends to be fresher. And it may meet organic considerations,” Wood said. “It can be closer to maturity and have less chance of mechanical damage or some other damage” that could occur in a mass-production setting.

All specialty farmers have to do is wait for consumers with discriminating tastes to come along. That’s the philosophy of Shelton, the free-range egg producer in Ojai. “People appreciate the quality,” he said.

“I feel we’re reaching a point in our society where there is this exclusive clientele, especially in areas around Ojai and Santa Barbara where people are willing to pay extra for what they feel is superior quality food.”

Robert Dautch of Earth Trine Farms in Carpinteria has a somewhat different attitude. He sells arugula, golden beets, parsnips and purple kohlrabi at farmers markets at a price the average person can afford.

“It gives people a chance, lower-income people that couldn’t go to Spago,” he said.

Dautch, of course, is referring to a ritzy restaurant in Los Angeles. That establishment, like other middle- to upper-level eateries, helps keep a lot of specialty growers in business.

Underwood Farms deals directly with California Grill in Ventura, Giovanni’s and Fabrizio’s restaurants in Camarillo, The Rendezvous in Newbury Park and Eatz in Westlake Village.

The company also sells through a distributor to a number of other restaurants.

Lupe Ramirez, owner of The Garden restaurant in Port Hueneme, gets some of her specialty produce from the farmers markets.

Other items she gets from her own back yard. She grows herbs, cilantro, basil and tarragon.

“It’s a special touch from home,” she said. “Customers want to get back to the old traditional way. They’re tired of the commercial way.”

And as part of that tradition, it seems, some consumers and growers want to keep alive certain foods that probably would not exist if it was left up to giant agribusinesses.

Future for Specialties

Dautch said he gets people coming to him with seeds, requesting that he plant them because they can’t find the particular produce elsewhere.

“There are a lot of varieties that kind of got replaced during the grocery-store era of shopping that are now coming back,” he said.

Marty Gay, co-owner of MK’s restaurant in Ojai, which serves its share of specialty foods, said some varieties of lettuce are around only because of small growers.

“Radicchio has made a big comeback, so has mache, lamb’s quarters, Belgian endives,” he said. “All of these are things that people are starting to grow around here.”

And with greater concern about pesticides and a growing appetite for a variety of foodstuffs, most people in the county figure that specialty produce will stick around for some time to come.

“Every day, there are more people interested in this market,” said Newman of the Santa Clara Chemical & Seed Co. “Locally, it seems like it’s increasing every day.”

But at least one person doesn’t agree that the trend will continue.

“It’s just a matter of taste and novelty,” said Robert Brendler, the University of California Extension farm adviser in Ventura County for the past 45 years.

“It’s a question of somebody trying it out for the fun of it and then going back to the regular produce. I’m afraid that’s the kind of thing that is going to happen.”

After all, he said, “if you go back 40 to 50 years, broccoli was considered a minor vegetable.”