Local Farm Industry Reaped a Record Harvest in ’97

Ventura County’s farm industry reached record heights in 1997, bringing in more than $942 million and topping the previous all-time harvest of 1995 by $20 million, according to the annual crop report released Friday.

But don’t ask Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail to explain why. It seemed like a good but relatively uneventful season to him.

“It was kind of a blah year in a lot of respects,” McPhail said at a news conference. “There were a lot of little things that came together, but there isn’t anything that really jumps out at me.”

Then again, maybe that is the point. With no major rainstorms or pest invasions in 1997 and years of work to improve international marketing, maybe it was the kind of year local farmers should come to expect in normal times.

“They’re doing a much better job of marketing their product than in the past, and that is probably as much of a factor as anything. . . . Our quality is second to none,” McPhail said.

At $217 million, lemons easily remained the county’s top crop. The lemon harvest had been valued at $201 million the year before.

And again, lemons were followed by strawberries, which were worth $143 million in 1997--about the same as the $142 million the previous year.

Nursery stock was again the county’s third-biggest agricultural moneymaker in 1997, jumping from $82 million to $95 million. McPhail attributed the increase in part to nursery owners relocating to Ventura County after being pushed out of Los Angeles and Orange counties by urban encroachment.

But manager Kyle Puerner of Green Meadow Nursery in Camarillo believes it also involves increased construction creating more demand for shrubbery and other landscaping.

“It seems like each year, we get a little more and more,” Puerner said. “There are more people moving into the county, and now that the economy has picked up, business is back. It’s gotten a lot better.”

The biggest increase among the top 10 crops came in Valencia oranges, which have been in a major slump for most of this decade. The Valencia crop was valued at just under $70 million last year--a huge jump from the $42 million the year before.

Local growers last year were able to garner much better prices than usual, due in part to pest problems incurred by Florida orange farmers, McPhail said.

Still, he and other farm officials believe the county’s Valencia orange industry is facing a troubled future.

“Unfortunately, I think it was an anomaly,” said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. “My perception is that Valencia oranges are not making a lot of money.”

Like McPhail, Laird could offer no easy explanation for the record-setting crop year. But he wasn’t going to over-analyze the good news.

“Often times, we in the agricultural industry talk in trite terms about how much of a gamble farming is,” Laird said. “But it’s really true. There are so many factors out of the control of politicians and economists and growers. Sometimes you never know.”

But one constant in the year-in, year-out success of county growers is their innovation in finding niche markets, Laird said.

For instance, local growers have wholeheartedly jumped into growing Asian vegetables such as bok choy, harvesting 2,379 acres in 1997 compared with 1,733 the year before, the report showed. The result was a huge jump in the crop’s value, which doubled from $7 million to $14 million in just one year.

County farmers now grow from 150 to 175 different crops, McPhail said.

So what is the forecast for 1998?

Shortly after this season’s pummeling El Nino-stoked storms, farm experts issued dire predictions.

But because the county actually produced more flats of strawberries so far this year than at the same period the year before, local officials don’t know what to think about better times.

“Every time I get out my crystal ball it turns murky on me,” McPhail said. “Six months ago, I would have told you there was no way. But now, I don’t know.”

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Top 10 Crops in ’97

Crops: Lemons

Gross value: $217,458,000

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Crops: Strawberries

Gross value: $143,597,000

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Crops: Nursery stock

Gross value: $94,959,000

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Crops: Celery

Gross value: $94,344,000

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Crops: Valencia oranges

Gross value: $69,839,000

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Crops: Avocados

Gross value: $61,400,000

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Crops: Cut flowers

Gross value: $43,527,000

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Crops: Lettuce

Gross value: $25,952,000

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Crops: Broccoli

Gross value: $22,901,000

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Crops: Peppers

Gross value: $17,439,000

Source: Ventura County Agricultural Commission