Crop Damage From Cold Estimated at $74.3 Million
The recent bitter cold spell that devastated the citrus industry in the San Joaquin Valley also took its toll on Ventura County, with local officials estimating the damage at $74.3 million.
Although crops were ravaged throughout the county, most of the blighted orchards were found in and around Santa Paula, Ojai and the Santa Rosa Valley--which dipped to 22 degrees during the pre-Christmas freeze.
In general, affected farmers suffered from 1% to 60% damage to their lemons, oranges and avocados during the Dec. 20 to 24 cold snap, county Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail said Tuesday.
A small group of the county’s 700 citrus and avocado farmers have crop insurance and can recoup a portion of their financial losses, said Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau.
“But would it match what they would have made if they could have sold their crops?” he said. “My answer is no.”
Laird said there is “certainly a potential” for local buyers to raise the prices on citrus based on supply and demand, but added that it was too early to predict.
“I’m not about to say that will definitely happen here; there are too many variables and the situation is too volatile,” he said. “If we get into a tiff with Japan for any reason, for instance, they could put an artificial barrier on lemon imports. If that happened, then we would have a surplus here.”
But McPhail expected the price of citrus to increase in Ventura County the same way the prices of fruit--mainly navel oranges--have already sharply risen in other parts of California.
For instance, Lucky Stores raised the price of navels in the Los Angeles area from 69 cents a pound to 99 cents this week.
Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Dave Buettner said affected farmers are not eligible for federal financial aid, unlike growers in the San Joaquin Valley, where then-Gov. Pete Wilson declared a state of emergency at the end of December.
“At this point, there’s no financial help available to our growers,” Buettner said.
The loss to local farmers has also had a trickle-down effect.
Countywide, as many as 450 laborers have been laid off because of the dearth of eatable fruit to pick and pack, McPhail said. Several local packinghouses that receive San Joaquin Valley navel oranges--which are now in season--have even temporarily shut down, he said.
Although $74.3 million pales in comparison to the more than $500 million worth of crop devastation estimated in Fresno, Kern, Madera and Tulare counties, the local loss is serious because it represents nearly 8% of the total citrus and avocado industry in Ventura County.
“It is a significant loss,” said McPhail, who reported the early tally to Ventura County supervisors Tuesday morning. “And my gut feeling tells me the final count will be much higher. How much higher remains to be seen. . . . There are some farmers who are having some real problems.”
Jim Coultas and Terry Coultas Wilson are among them. The brother and sister said they used fans and heaters to warm their 80 acres of lemon, avocado and orange orchards in Ojai during the subfreezing nights. Still, they said they lost about 90% of their lemons and avocados.
“We’re basic small-time growers, so this was a major hit,” Coultas said, estimating his losses at more than $65,000.
Coultas Wilson gave a tour of her destroyed and badly damaged orchards Tuesday. Her lemons appeared OK from the outside, but they were shriveled inside.
When citrus freezes, the cells inside the fruit crystallize and pop. Then, when the cells thaw, the juice seeps through the skin, leaving the fruit dry and inedible.
“We figure we lost about half of our yearly income,” said Coultas Wilson, who added that they have no crop insurance. “But that’s farm life. You save during your good years to live during the bad ones.”
County officials said a cold snap in 1990 caused more than $100 million in damage to crops countywide. Coultas said his losses that year topped $250,000.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Crop LossHere is an itemized list of crop damage in Ventura County from last month’s cold snap. There has been no reported loss of strawberries, which are not in season.
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Crop Percent damaged Estimated dollar loss Lemons 20% $43,491,000 Valencia oranges 20% $20,951,000 Navel oranges 15% $9,210,000 Avocados 10% $664,000
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Source: Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office
