County OKs Plan Aimed at Preserving Farmland

Stepping up efforts to protect the area’s $1.2-billion-a-year agriculture industry, Ventura County supervisors approved a plan Tuesday aimed at getting farmers and local government officials working together to preserve farmland.

The supervisors unanimously approved formation of a task force--made up of farmers, government officials and others--whose primary mission will be to devise long-term farmland protection policies.

Officials said working with the agricultural industry on farmland preservation issues is preferable to having policy decided at the ballot box. Backers of a Ventura ordinance that requires voter approval before agricultural land can be developed in the city have proposed placing a similar countywide measure on the 1998 ballot.

“I don’t think you should treat the very people you want to continue to exist in a dictatorial way,” said board Chairman John Flynn, who joined Supervisor Kathy Long in proposing the special task force. “I think that’s wrong. I think that’s what an ordinance does. I think you get more mileage from a cooperative approach.”

But Ventura Councilman Steve Bennett, co-sponsor of the city’s 1995 farmland preservation initiative, said he questions whether the task force would be able to come up with enforceable protection policies.

“Everybody says they want to protect farmland,” he said. “But nobody is willing to adopt a measure that has teeth to make sure that will happen.”

Bennett said until he sees legally binding policies, his slow-growth coalition will continue to push for farmland initiatives across the county.

“Enormous pressures come to bear when somebody stands to make millions of dollars off a development,” he said. “Unless you have a measure with teeth in it, then it’s constantly going to wilt in the face of those pressures.”

Supervisor Long, however, said she believes the task force can come up with some binding farmland protection policies.

For instance, she said, the task force will be looking to strengthen six greenbelt agreements between cities. The greenbelts--83,000 acres of farmland and open space--serve as a buffer zone between the cities.

As now written, the greenbelt agreements merely discourage development in their designated areas, Long said. But the task force could work with individual cities to make the agreements legally binding, she said.

“I have faith we can make this work,” Long said of the task force. “We’re just trying to get ahead of the curve of having land-use decisions made in vacuums. It’s a risk. But if it doesn’t reach all the goals I have in my heart, then I think the public education part of it will at least be worth it.”

The farmland task force will include 10 to 15 members. In addition to Long and Flynn, the group will include members from the Farm Bureau, Ventura County Economic Development Assn., Building Industry Assn. and other groups that have been active in farmland issues, such as the Ventura County League of Women Voters.

Long said she hoped the working group could be put together within the next two weeks. Once the task force is formed and has researched all pertinent farmland issues, she said, it will then begin holding “town hall” meetings across the county to discuss what individual cities and the general public would like to see in terms of new protection policies.

Meanwhile, representatives of the agriculture industry said they fully support the county’s plan, but acknowledge that getting government officials, farmers and environmentalists to agree on the best course of action will not be easy.

“It’s going to take the wisdom of Solomon from all of us to pull this off,” county Farm Bureau Director Rex Laird told supervisors Tuesday. “It will be a challenge, but I think we’re up to it.”