Having Field Day on the Farm

The one thing less common in the San Fernando Valley than a farmer may be a 12-year-old farmer. While his schoolmates might spend their summer days hanging out at the beach or the mall, Tony Cicero is driving a tractor, above right, on his family’s farm in Woodland Hills. “They think I’m lucky,” the seventh-grader said of his friends at Northridge Junior High School. Tony has agriculture in his blood. The Ciceros have farmed in the Valley for more than 40 years, most notably a cornfield in the Sepulveda Basin. In 1986, they moved some of their operations to a leased 15-acre plot at the intersection of De Soto Avenue and Victory Boulevard, below left, where they also sell produce from a covered stand. Tony’s father, Joe, taught him how to operate a tractor when he was 10 and, to hear Tony, it’s no more difficult than learning to ride a bike. This summer the novice farmer says he’s been preparing the land for planting “whenever my dad asks me to.” Despite his early training, Tony isn’t sure about making farming a career. “It depends on how baseball goes,” explained the catcher-infielder, right. “I’m going to try to be a pro.” Sounds like another “Field of Dreams.”