Fertile Ground for a Compromise

It’s apropos I happen to be sitting on the back porch of the beautiful and historic Faulkner house while writing this piece.

Recently purchased by the UC Hansen Trust to be preserved and enhanced, the Faulkner Farm will become the Hansen Agricultural Learning Center for research and education. This morning, other than the noise of the traffic from California 126 and Telegraph Avenue, it’s incredibly idyllic--a quintessential farm from our past to be enjoyed by future generations.

And as I look out over our holiday crops, pumpkins and Christmas trees, I can’t help but wonder: Will the Faulkner Farm remain in the heart of agriculture in the Santa Clara Valley or will it eventually be an island in a sea of rooftops?

Agricultural preservation and urban land use are issues presently at center stage in Ventura County. It’s timely that the Agriculture Policy Working Group has been created to face these challenges.

Sitting here, I have a much deeper appreciation for the value of our agricultural heritage, and as a member of that working group, I am reminded of the daunting challenge before us. How do we determine and achieve a sustainable balance among agricultural, urban and other land uses? What do we want our future to be? How are we to evolve?

We are a diverse group of ag, community, business, environmental and governmental leaders. Among us there are strong interests and agendas, some revealed and some still concealed. We have spent the first four meetings gathering information, hearing presentations, and slowly getting to know one another--all in preparation for the difficult but necessary work ahead.

Though it’s important to have good information, I’m convinced that even more fundamental to our success will be our ability to trust and respect one another. This is essential. Superficial, skimming-the-surface discussions will not get us far. We must be patient and take the time to probe deep below the surface to discover our ground water of common meaning and understanding. Here, if we are diligent and committed, we will find the answers.

To do this, we must be ready to drop our advocacy roles and come to the table with the attitude of serving the whole county. Certainly, we will bring our various viewpoints to the discussion and the different perspectives will be important, but it will be the combination of the will to succeed and the grace to compromise that will allow us to find a higher ground to which we can all transcend.

If one or more interests suffer disproportionately or one element benefits at the expense of another, we will not be successful.

In a sense, we are rebuilding community and developing a new set of relationships where “us vs. them” is replaced by greater cooperation, trust and mutual benefit. If this group cannot learn new behaviors, what hope do we have for the larger community?

Also, in order to have true community, there must be a clear sense of purpose and a set of principles that guide us in our deliberations, decisions and work. Principles are not platitudes, rather they are deeply held values and beliefs that guide our behavior and how we relate to one another. They are fundamental to building trust and respect. I fear our tendency will be to rush to fix problems without first reaching a common understanding of who we are, what we want to become, and how we want to get there.

Knowing we won’t get it perfect the first time, and since perfect is a moving target anyway, one of our principles should be about learning. We will do our best to gather information, analyze the problems and issues, and together create our brightest vision for the future. And based on all of that, we will make choices. But our progress and accomplishments will be inseparable from and dependent on our capacity to learn from our experience and from one another.

I’m excited about the possibilities. We have a special opportunity.

We may as well commit, because if not this effort, what? If not now, when? And if not this group, who?