Agriculture Production Jumps 17% in ’93 : Farming: Soaring sales help boost the county’s economy. Lemons, celery and strawberries were the top crops.
Ventura County’s agricultural production rose dramatically in value last year--a rebound that coincides with signs of recovery elsewhere in the regional economy.
Crop sales hit $848 million in 1993, soaring after an abysmal, rain-battered harvest the previous year. Buoyed by strong celery prices and a healthy avocado market, the county’s overall crop value jumped 17%, according to an annual report released Wednesday.
The higher farm earnings also boosted a bevy of related businesses, helping soil analysts, irrigation consultants, seed salesmen and produce truckers, economists said.
The encouraging report, issued by county Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail, comes just as Ventura County’s overall economy shows hints of shaking off a prolonged slump. Housing sales are climbing, office buildings are filling and more county residents are finding work.
“When one segment of the economy does better, we all do better,” said Marc Charney, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. “You certainly get a ripple effect, because those who earn more money spend more.”
Surging crop values, Charney said, can help the whole region because “agriculture is still among our most important industries.”
From avocados to Valencia oranges, most of the county’s big crops found healthy markets last year. For the first time in years, celery edged out strawberries as Ventura County’s No. 2 revenue producer, after lemons.
And some niche crops, such as kale and cilantro, brought in unusually high prices.
The abstract numbers mean little to most Ventura County residents, who see tractors rumbling through fields and pickers bending over rows regardless of a given crop’s sales figures.
But economists and farmers argue that in the long run, county crop values matter a great deal. Every dollar generated by produce, flower or livestock sales corresponds to three dollars spent on agricultural-related industries, from pesticides to cardboard boxes.
So when crop sales sag, the whole economy lurches.
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At Oxnard-based irrigation firm Coastal Pipco, for example, Leonard Kaufmann watched his business drop by 20% in the past few years. He attributes the loss, in part, to the tumbling crop prices in 1992.
Even when agricultural earnings perked up last year, Coastal Pipco’s business still staggered, as farmers seemed reluctant to spend money on equipment. But now that growers have seen a full year of higher prices, Kaufmann’s sales are edging up.
“If there’s an actual increase in (farmers’) revenue over previous years, that will show up in their willingness to spend money on maintenance and on upgrading equipment,” he said.
Given that ripple effect, “people in this county should be very concerned about what happens to agriculture,” said Doug Lowthorp, a sales representative for vegetable powerhouse Deardorff-Jackson Co.
“If you look at business’s track records, the agricultural industry has basically carried the Ventura County economy,” he added.
Indeed, agriculture remains the county’s fifth-largest employer, after broadly defined industries such as services, retail trade and durable manufacturing.
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Thus, a jump in the cash value of local crops “is certainly very good news for the rest of the economy, no doubt about it,” said economics professor Jamshid Damooei of Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.
But growers cautioned that the impressive hike in crop value does not necessarily reflect hefty profits. The figures released by the agricultural commissioner deal strictly with gross sales and do not consider farmers’ costs or per-acre revenue.
“If we earned $848 million, we probably spent $900 million” to plant, pick and package the crops, said David Clarke, who manages some of Boskovitch Farm’s vast vegetable fields.
And because of farming’s roller-coaster nature, “if we did make any money last year, we’re losing it all this year,” he said.
Indeed, vegetable ranchers predicted a drop in crop value when the 1994 harvests are tallied next spring.
Good weather statewide has yielded bumper crops of celery, broccoli and other commodities--and the vegetable glut has pushed prices way down. And though celery brought in up to $10 a box last year, growers this year can barely recoup their picking and packing costs of $3 a box.
“Berries were just so-so this year,” said rancher Scott Deardorff, an owner of Deardorff-Jackson, “and all vegetable crops were really, really bad.”
County’s Total Crop Values
(in millions) 1993 $848 1992 $722 1991 $910 1990 $852 1989 $806 1988 $758 1987 $669 1986 $613 1985 $551 1984 $580
Source: Ventura County Agricultural Commission
Top Producing Crops for 1993 Lemons: $216.1 million Celery: $113.8 million Strawberries: $110.5 million Nursery stock: $81.6 million Avocados: $49.9 million Valencia oranges: $45.0 million Lettuce: $28.7 million Cut flowers: $23.1 million Broccoli: $12.8 million Cabbage: $8.9 million Source: Ventura County Agricultural Commission
