Farmers Bucking Odds Amid Vanishing Land : Agriculture: Three partners seek to reap crops, profits from long-abandoned Camarillo parcel.

The field lies fallow now, a rectangular patch a shade north of the Conejo Grade, bare but for neatly spaced sprinkler heads and a few remaining patches of stubborn weeds.

Every motorist scooting west over the grade can spot the field’s flat drabness off to the right, just beyond the expanse of glossy, dark green lemon groves. Seventy-three tufted eucalyptus trees, unevenly spaced as a gap-tooth smile, stand guard over the waiting dirt.

The field on the outskirts of Camarillo has nurtured, over the years, white-faced cattle, a mountain lion’s family and an architect’s blueprint for hundreds of trim suburban homes. Now, three Ventura County ranchers want to turn it into a farm.

Craig Underwood, Jim Roberts and Minos Athanassiadis plan to cover the long-abandoned parcel--about as big as The Oaks mall parking lot--with spicy salad greens, tender baby carrots and sweet summer corn.

It’s a considerable gamble.

Risking their other landholdings as collateral, the farmers took out a hefty bank loan last spring and bought the field for $420,000. They then began to get the soil in shape for the fall planting--a six-month struggle that set them back $154,000 more.

They will plant the first seeds this month, and hope to reap three crops from the untested 60-acre field they have dubbed Conejo Ranch.

Rather than grow run-of-the-mill vegetables like iceberg lettuce, the three will try for gourmet greens--ritzy varieties of lettuce like Japanese mizuna, Chinese tatsoi and Italian arugula. By sticking with specialty crops, they hope to claim a niche in a vegetable market dominated by huge commercial growers.

“If anyone can pull it off, Craig will,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “He’s always willing to throw the dice.”

Just by staking out Conejo Ranch for farming, Underwood is bucking the odds.

A national farmland conservation group recently named California’s coast, including Ventura County, as the third most threatened agricultural region in the United States. And all around their knobby, sun-bleached field, the ranchers can see signs of urban encroachment.

Across the Ventura Freeway, a big chunk of ag land is up for sale. Another nearby patch, long since sold, will soon sprout a dry cleaners, a beauty parlor, maybe a gas station.

Similar “Coming Soon” and “For Sale” signs are cropping up on once-sacred ag land across the nation, as more and more farmers auction their fields to deep-pocketed developers.

Up to 2 million acres of farmland vanish in the United States each year, as strip malls replace strawberry patches and condominiums bloom in carrot fields.

Ventura County alone lost nearly 1,500 acres of farmland between 1988 and 1990, according to a state Department of Conservation survey.

In relative terms, the county’s pool of ag land declined only 4% between 1984 and 1990, and the total pool of irrigated farmland still tops 105,000 acres. But the more than 5,400 acres taken out of farming is still a substantial swath to be gobbled up in the space of six years.

Statewide, the picture looks just as grim. The amount of California farmland that has vanished in the past decade exceeds the total agricultural acreage in Ventura County.

Upon hearing of Underwood’s venture, a conservation expert said he was “very encouraged--and frankly, quite surprised.”

Erik Vink of American Farmland Trust said it was “very unusual that land which has been in limbo for years is going back into agricultural production.”

Nonetheless, Underwood rejects the mantle of farming super-hero bravely battling urban sprawl.

Down-to-earth and plain-spoken, he will acknowledge that farmers are “a dying breed,” and he may even pause briefly to lament the loss of ag land. But he insists he’s no martyr out to sacrifice himself for a piece of dirt.

As the yellowed Wall Street Journal on the floor of his pickup truck attests, Underwood considers himself a businessman. And in some ways, he and his partners stand to profit from the conversion of ag land nationwide.

Musing one afternoon on the inexorable march of development, Underwood’s father said: “Someday the people are all going to go hungry.”

A pause, then Roberts broke in: “And I’ll be there to feed them.”

The Agricultural Life Is Not for Everyone

Like most ranchers, the partners regard their vocation with rueful reverence.

Sometimes they wonder why they got into this job, where nature can drown a year’s profits in sudden, drenching rain. Where the price of avocados can plunge so abruptly that it’s not worth picking them. Where voracious snails can gobble up an entire grove of lemons. Where every season brings new risks.

Although Underwood’s family has farmed in Ventura County for more than a century--starting with a great-grandfather who grew black-eyed beans and walnuts--he knows not everyone can stand the uncertainties of living off the land.

His brother-in-law, for example, worked the ranch for 14 years but finally quit to become a high school teacher. “He found it stressful, this business of making $100,000 one year and losing $150,000 the next,” explained Alice Underwood, Craig’s mother and a third-generation farmer.

In fact, Underwood himself had doubts about entering the agricultural life. As an undergraduate at Cornell University, he was almost swayed by the English majors all around him who derided farmers as ignorant hayseeds. But he eventually agreed to help his father out in the family lemon groves. Soon, he was hooked. “It’s in my blood,” he said simply.

Underwood’s partners, too, describe agriculture as an irresistible tug on their psyches. “I didn’t choose farming--it chose me,” Roberts said. “I wouldn’t do anything else.”

Although he still can’t plow a straight furrow, Athanassiadis agrees. A business-school graduate and onetime philosophy student, he is now in charge of marketing and sales for Underwood Ranches.

His partners tease him about his decidedly un-green thumb, because he spends most of his time working the phones in his office. But Athanassiadis considers himself a farmer at heart.

“From a karma point of view, it seemed to be better to work in agriculture and feed people than to shuffle assets around on Wall Street,” he said, bushy eyebrows darting on his angular, expressive face.

Seeing the Inner Beauty in Unsightly Piece of Land

Fellow Ventura County farmers laud Underwood as a visionary--the first to try new technologies, the first to mulch his own compost, even the first to buy a cellular phone.

But Underwood sees himself more as a gambler.

When he bought Conejo Ranch, little of the rich brown dirt was visible. Abandoned for 15 years, the field had sprouted willow trees, mesquite brush and countless scrubby plants. Stagnant pools, choked with vegetation and silt, acted like quicksand--once sucking in a bulldozer and swamping it clear to its grimy roof.

Quail scurried through the brambles, a coyote howled from a nearby ridge and three lion cubs prowled through the muck. Wedged between lemon groves and tomato fields, just below a cactus-cloaked hill, the property had become a swamp.

“You could fish crawdads there,” Underwood said, marveling.

When he first took his Shetland sheep dog to scout out the field, she came home covered with ticks, Underwood recalled. Still, something about the land attracted both him and Roberts.

“It was beautiful--once you waded in,” said Roberts, 34, a tanned, blue-eyed Camarillo resident in charge of Underwood Ranches’ vegetable crops. He took heart in the healthy willow trees, which had grown three stories high in just over a dozen years. “Good brush, good crops,” he reasoned.

But Athanassiadis, 36, was more skeptical: “We hiked up to the top of that hill and I looked down at the field and said, ‘There’s no way you can do anything with that piece of land.’ You couldn’t even drive a truck in there.”

The third partner, 51-year-old Underwood, settled it with a nod.

They would buy the land, they would farm it, and--with hard work, shrewd planning and good luck--they would make a profit.

“I guess we were just going by the gut feel,” he explained.

Gut feel aside, Underwood knew this particular patch of Southern California dirt had easy access to a rancher’s most critical resource: water. The concrete-edged creek running along the field carries discharge from Thousand Oaks’ water treatment plant, and farmers throughout the Santa Rosa Valley dip into the channel for irrigation.

But before they could start planting on Conejo Ranch, the partners had to pour thousands of dollars--and scores of hours--into each soggy acre.

They spent the summer clear-cutting the land with bulldozers and brush-shredders. Massing the debris in small heaps, they set off a series of bonfires that sent smoke curling skyward across the field.

Once the land was bare, except for a sprinkling of leftover wood chips, the partners dug up the topsoil to install an underground drainage system. Then, to make the land even to plow, they shelled out $24,000 for a high-tech leveling job.

A computer-controlled laser surveyed the field to map its hills and swales. Mounted on a pole, the laser directed a bucket-wielding tractor to grade the entire lot, scooping out here and filling in there. Finally, the land lay flat--and ready to receive the first seeds.

As planting gets under way this month, the three partners will enter a new phase of intense labor. Though they won’t be dropping the seeds into the furrows themselves, they will be supervising every painstaking step.

“With vegetables, if you’re not out there 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, things slip by,” Underwood said.

A Family Legacy Shows the Fruits of Hard Work

Anytime the partners start grousing about their workload, Dick Underwood sets them straight with tales about life on the land before machines made everything easy. At 77, Craig Underwood’s father can spin alarming anecdotes about fire, flood and near-famine.

He remembers a season of about 30 years ago, when low-hanging smog, acting like acid rain, singed acres upon acres of spinach. That dismal harvest brought Dick and Alice Underwood only $200--gross.

The measly sum wasn’t nearly enough to make a dent in their bills, so the Underwoods blew it all on five straight-backed wooden chairs, which still sit in their living room. Dubbed the “spinach chairs,” they’re an apt warning of all that can go wrong in farming.

On the other hand, the 125-year Underwood family legacy serves as a strong reminder of all that can go right.

“There’s something very therapeutic in watching things grow,” said Alice Underwood, still passionate about farming at age 76. “If there’s a good crop, the boys are satisfied even if they don’t make any money.”

But by and large, they have made money. By focusing on their narrow market niche of baby vegetables and gourmet greens the family has been able to turn a decent profit most years and steadily expand its operations.

The Underwoods now own three separate lemon groves along California 118, covering more territory than 100 football fields. Plus, they lease 700 acres from development companies and absentee landlords.

Along with the farming, the Underwoods and their partners run a produce stand in Somis and a packinghouse where they bundle lettuce, carrots and corn for distribution to major supermarkets. They feel confident enough financially to have bought a fourth field, Conejo Ranch.

“Most farmers complain about weather and prices--it’s kind of a habit,” Craig Underwood said. “But if you’re lucky and you work hard and you make more right decisions than wrong ones, you’ll survive. You’ll do OK.”

Bouncing around town in a gray Ford pickup with his sheep dog perched in the passenger seat, Underwood added: “There are definitely times when you get discouraged, but I have never wanted to be doing anything else. Ever.”

After years of fighting the stereotype of farmers as bumbling, straw-chewing hicks, Underwood said he senses a new appreciation for agriculture. His partners agree, gladly.

“If you go back, our ancestors are all farmers,” Roberts said. “That’s why people tend to look on farmers favorably--because we represent the past.”

And indeed, several Camarillo residents said they welcomed the new farming venture, just a stone’s throw from Leisure Village and the dead-end of Adolfo Road. Despite some concern about pesticides, smells and noise, neighbors were relieved to learn that the cleared-out plot was earmarked for lettuce rather than condominiums.

“There are so many homes going in around here, replacing ag land, that it’s nice to see the reverse happening,” said Leanne Davis, who has lived near the field for six years. Davis said she occasionally hears fans churning away in the nearby lemon groves but doesn’t mind the background noise. “It lets us know that we’re not in the city anymore,” she said. “That’s why we moved here.”

Ecological Concerns Clash With Agricultural History

But not everyone considers a well-tilled field beautiful. Ecologists at the state Department of Fish and Game would have been happier if Underwood and his partners left the field an overgrown marsh.

Because the land was not classified as a stream bed or lake, the department had no jurisdiction over its use, plant ecologist Mary Meyer said. And because the new owners did not request a land-use change--the parcel has always been zoned agricultural--clear-cutting more than a dozen years growth of brush did not trigger an environmental review.

“It falls into a gray area,” Meyer said. “It’s a good example of all the wetlands we’ve lost in this state.”

Environmental specialist Ken Wilson added: “It doesn’t matter to wildlife what it’s zoned. If the field were left fallow, nature would reclaim it.”

To make sure they were allowed to farm on Conejo Ranch, Underwood and his partners hired consultants to clear their plans with the county, the fish and game department and the flood control district. Eventually, the ranchers may move their packinghouse to a corner of the property. But for now, they plan to keep the field in row crops.

Countering the environmentalists’ outrage, Underwood points out that his farm will pick up a thread of agricultural use that stretches back at least three-quarters of a century.

The field’s agricultural history begins in the 1920s, when Adolfo Camarillo let his white-faced cattle graze there. After Camarillo’s death in 1958, his estate manager had to sell the parcel to pay for inheritance taxes. The Marlborough development company snapped it up.

Ambitious plans to build 240 single-family homes on the field crumbled when the Camarillo City Council rejected Marlborough’s bid for development in the mid-1970s. So the company began leasing its parcel to local ranchers, who grew vegetables there until the 1979 flood wiped them out entirely.

To weather future deluges, Underwood and his partners have installed a web of drainage pipes nearly five feet under the soil, which pour into a sump pump that directs excess water into Conejo Creek. The drainage pipes, known as tiles, cost $60,000--and were responsible for the trio’s first Conejo Ranch injury earlier this month.

While examining the sump pump filter, which keeps creek algae from flooding into the irrigation system, Roberts accidentally jammed his hand in the suction mechanism. His partners had to pry the filter open with a crowbar in order to free Roberts’ mangled fingers, which required several stitches.

The partners reacted matter-of-factly. “Farming’s a dangerous occupation,” Underwood said.

Confident Partners Facing a Rocky Road

Proud as a new parent, Underwood captured each phase of his field preparation with multiple photos: The bulldozer attacking a willow in a cloud of dust. The shredder chomping up a flower-flecked bush. The tidy piles of brambles awaiting a county-approved burn day.

“It is like having a new child, kind of,” said Roberts, whose wife is expecting their second baby around Thanksgiving. “It’s exciting.”

More sober about the venture, Underwood added, “The nervous part is having to borrow money from the bank.”

“Don’t think about that part,” Roberts admonished him. “It’s going to do well.”

Even if Conejo Ranch does well, though, the partners will need about 25 years to pay back the bank loan, Underwood estimated.

And in the meantime, they will face some big challenges.

Leveling the field and driving heavy machinery over the soil has thrown the dirt’s natural balances slightly out of whack. Air pockets and water crevices have shifted, and plants may have a hard time at first drawing out vital nutrients.

“The soil is alive--if you do something traumatic to it, it will react like any living organism,” Roberts said. “You have to let it recover before it will really perform.”

What’s more, weeds are used to having free run of the parcel--and they’re likely to resent the orderly row crops that the partners plan to plant.

To give their crops an edge in the turf war, the farmers will have to spray a herbicide before planting. They will also till the soil regularly to cut out the weeds as they spring up between lettuce leaves.

The three exotic greens that will cover the ground this fall are known as aggressive plants, quick to take root and defend their soil from encroaching weeds, Athanassiadis said.

The first growing season stretches from early November through January. The partners plan to plant several acres of greens each week so they can harvest continuously during the winter. As each strip of exotic lettuce ripens, crews will harvest it and then prepare the earth for the spring crop--most likely baby carrots.

Planted in January and February, these vegetables will be ready for harvest in May. And then, to complete their yearly cycle, the partners plan a summer crop of either corn or jalapeno peppers, to be planted in late May or early June and harvested in August.

Even if they battle down the weeds, however, the ranchers predict a difficult first year on the long-fallow field. For one thing, fist-sized rocks speckle large chunks of the property, creating patches that look more like bumpy backcountry roads than rich agricultural land.

At the adjacent Hartman Ranch lemon grove, longtime foreman Joe Esparza knows what his new neighbors are facing.

A burly man with crooked teeth, graying hair and the farmer’s uniform of faded jeans and dusty shirt-sleeves, Esparza has been picking rocks off the land for as long as he can remember, starting way back when the family car was a horse and buggy and the Santa Rosa shopping center was the site of Adolfo Camarillo’s annual rodeo.

“I can’t tell you where the rocks come from, but they keep on coming,” he said, blowing his nose in a red bandanna. “If you gave me a penny for every rock I’ve picked out of these orchards, I’d be a millionaire.”

Not that he’s complaining, Esparza hastily added. “Don’t get me wrong--it’s not a hassle,” he said. “It’s just a maintenance thing, like hoeing the weeds.”

Farmers’ Hopes Lie Deep in Fertile Soil

Despite the rocks and the weeds, Underwood said he believes he can make a go of Conejo Ranch.

His father heartily approves: “It’s a good piece of dirt. I can just tell.”

Actually, the field contains six different types of dirt, each burdened with a technical name like “Corralitos loamy sand” or “Pico sandy loam,” said Darrell Nelson, president of the Fruit Growers Laboratory in Santa Paula.

Like the rest of the Oxnard and Camarillo plains, the field was formed about 10,000 years ago, when the Santa Clara River meandered back and forth over the entire area. With each sweep across the plain, the river dumped heaps of sediment, rich in organic nutrients.

Over the years, the river’s deposits settled and formed a fertile soil that extends 100 feet deep in some places, according to Bill Bilodeau, a geology professor at Cal Lutheran University.

Perhaps because of this common heritage, the Ventura County soil survey classifies all six types of dirt on Conejo Ranch as good for growing--water penetrates well, there’s little risk of erosion, and crops can draw on plenty of nutrients.

But each of the six types of dirt has distinct characteristics, from depth to color to acidity. One stretch feels like fine sand, another more like gummy clay. Each requires different irrigation and fertilization techniques. Some might stubbornly resist the ranchers’ best efforts.

“On every field, there are bad pockets and good pockets,” Roberts explained.

“But you’ve got to farm both,” Underwood said. “The bank loan’s on the whole property, not just the good parts.”

To get a feel for his new land, Underwood himself took up a task he usually delegates to one of his 140 employees--driving the plow. He was only making a preliminary furrow, but he had the satisfaction of watching the earth--his earth--churn behind him.

Underwood liked how the dirt turned under his plow. But he’s still not positive he will turn a profit. “It’s all a gamble,” he said. “We felt we could put this land back into shape, but there’s definitely an element of uncertainty.”

PREPARING THE FIELD

For 15 years this 60-acre field lay untouched, a swampy expanse that was home to flocks of quail and even a family of mountain lions. In the coming year it will be transformed from fallow acreage to fertile farmland. But before partner Craig Underwood could begin planting the greens, baby carrots and corn, much work had to be done. Preparing the field involved clearing trees and brush, leveling the surface and installing a drainage system. A combination of traditional techniques and the latest technology were used.

Leveling with Lasers

A high-tech laser leveling system was used to survey and grade the field, a process that took eight to 10 days. Here’s how it works:

A) The laser spins on top of a mast in the middle of the field sending a beam 360 degrees around the field. The receiver, towed behind an all-terrain vehicle, picks up the beam, recording elevations every 100 feet.

B) Computer printouts of the survey are analyzed to determine which areas need to be cut or filled to achieve the desired drainage slope.

C) Data is entered into the laser transmitter, which beams to the receiver on the scraper. Hydraulics automatically raise and lower the scraper blade, to cut or drop dirt.

D) A second tractor smooths over the surface.

Clearing the Way

It took about two months to clear the field, the size of 47 football fields, of trees and overgrown foliage. There were six stages of preparation:

1) Bulldozing: Trees; and other large foliage were plowed into piles to be burned.

2) Burning Brush: Eleven large piles of bulldozed trees and brush were burned one and a half months later, when the Air Pollution Control District granted permission.

Burning Issues

* The Air Pollution Control District permits brush burning only on designated days, usually when the weather is clear and winds are low.

* There have been 27 allowable burn days so far this year.

3) Shredding: A front-end loader with a shredder attachment was used to chop sage and large weeds.

4) Surveying: The field was surveyed using a laser leveling system. (See detail at bottom left.)

5) Leveling: Once surveyed, a laser controlled scraper was used to achieve the desired grade. (See detail at bottom left.)

6) Drainage: A system was installed to remove excess water up to 300 gallons per minute.

Analyzing the Soil

The basic composition of the field is rich, sandy soil, good for growing. Conejo Ranch contains several types of soil, each requiring different growing techniques.

Draining Excess Water

* The property has a high water table, which made a drainage system essential for removing excess water caused by rain and irrigation. The $60,000 drainage system is designed to protect roots from salt and increase crop production.

* About 21,000 feet of 4-inch lateral pipes and 1,240 feet of 8-inch main pipe were installed at Conejo Ranch.

* Tubes lead to a 48-inch sump 12 feet underground in a corner of the field. Two pumps alternately draw water from the sump, funneling it to Conejo Creek.

* Excess water enters tubing through small holes. Tubes were laid five feet deep every 100 feet.

* About three inches of gravel surrounds tubes, filtering the water.

Sources: Laser Leveling Service, Fruit Growers’ Laboratory Inc., Sales Specialized Trenching Systems Inc., Craig Underwood

Researched by JULIE SHEER and STEPHANIE SIMON / Los Angeles Times

About This Series

“60 Acres of Hope,” a seasonal series that begins today, will trace the first year of a Southern California farm field.

* Today’s article examines the field’s history and the steps taken to ready it for planting. It also looks at the three men who have staked their savings on the untested stretch of dirt alongside U.S. 101.

* Future stories will explain the growing cycle, from planting to harvest, and explore the perilous economics of farming. Articles will also follow the farmers’ struggle against pests and bad weather, and will examine new irrigation and fertilization techniques.

* Finally, the series will profile the fieldworkers-many of them immigrants-who plant, pick and package the vegetables.