Company Under Scrutiny Has Good Reputation
Agri-Empire, the San Jacinto-based farming operation raided Monday in a toxic chemicals investigation, is the state’s largest potato grower and a family business with a reputation for quality.
With an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 acres throughout Southern California planted in potatoes, the Minor family’s operations supply potatoes year-round, largely for fresh market sale in the United Sates, Mexico and Canada.
Representatives of the state’s potato industry said Agri-Empire has a top-notch reputation for setting high standards for its products. Because of this reputation and the special relationship that most potato farmers have with the soil, others familiar with the company said they would be extremely surprised if Agri-Empire had allowed toxins to leach into its potato growing areas.
Founded by James W. Minor as the San Jacinto Packing Co. more than 40 years ago, Agri-Empire is run by brothers Larry and Wayne Minor and third-generation family members.
Larry Minor, president of the company, is a broad-shouldered, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf look-alike who is a hands-on manager, said farm consultant Albert Fradkin.
“He knows what’s in every field, as big as that operation is, and he gets out there with a shovel. He doesn’t rely solely on his foremen,” said Fradkin, a former potato seed researcher and salesman who said he knew the farm’s founder for more than 40 years before the elder Minor’s death nearly two years ago.
Because potatoes are tubers, a keen knowledge of soil and careful attention to soil conditions are mandatory, Fradkin said. Potato farming “separates the men from the boys,” he said.
Although conditions vary farm to farm, potato farmers generally say their crop requires less use of pesticides and herbicides than many other food crops. John Moore, president of the White Wolf Potato Co. in Arvin, Calif., said he doubts that leakage from a pesticide or herbicide storage area could contaminate large growing areas.
However, environmental hazards on farmland have become an increasingly volatile subject in recent years, as farmers and environmentalists square off over the issues of chemical use and storage.
Agri-Empire grows white and red potatoes primarily on fields in and near Hemet and San Jacinto, but has growing areas near Bakersfield and in the Coachella Valley. It sells its California long white potatoes under the California Whites or White Jim’s Dandy labels. It also sells Red Rose and Red Lasoda varieties.
Recently, the company built a new plant near San Jacinto for grading potatoes. Industry insiders estimate that the plant cost $8 million to $10 million.
In addition to Agri-Empire’s California potato growing operations, the company raises beef cattle and owns about 100,000 acres of farmland and ranchland in Utah and Montana.
