Trust Keeps Ventura Farming a Viable Industry

As the last member of a pioneer farming family, Thelma Hansen’s deathbed wish was to make sure agriculture was not just a part of Ventura County’s history.

So she gave most of her $12-million fortune to establish a trust aimed at ensuring that Ventura County farming would hold its own against suburban sprawl.

Today, Hansen’s vision can be seen at Ventura County Landmark No. 1 near Santa Paula, an old family farm where administrators of the Hansen Trust are laying plans for a learning center that will boost agricultural research and education.

The trust has helped plant about 150 gardens so schoolchildren from Somis to Simi Valley can learn where their food comes from.

In fields and nurseries across the county, Hansen Trust-funded research projects help farmers learn more about everything from how to fight pests to how to grow bigger oranges.

“Our ultimate goal is to keep agriculture a viable industry in Ventura County,” said Sheri Klittich, program administrator for the University of California-administered Hansen Trust, which operates out of an 18-room Victorian at Faulkner Farm.

“We don’t want to have the Hansen Trust agricultural museum here surrounded by development,” she said. “We want to use the resources of the trust not just to do the public awareness part but also to help growers stay ahead of all the challenges they are facing.”

That was the vision of Thelma Hansen, a fiercely independent farmer who before her death in 1992 had grown increasingly alarmed by the rapid loss of farmland and spread of urbanization.

Born in 1898, Hansen studied mathematics at UC Berkeley before returning to Ventura County in 1921 to help on the family farm in Saticoy. By 1989, she was the last descendant of the John C. Hansen farming family. When writing her will, she looked for ways to educate the public about the industry that had sustained her family all those years.

That’s when she struck up a friendship with Larry Yee, head of the county’s UC Cooperative Extension office. Together, they designed a trust that would address her concerns about the future of farming.

When Hansen died, she bequeathed $12 million to UC’s agriculture division. That amount has since doubled, as has the portion--about $800,000 this year--paid out to run education and research programs.

“As Thelma looks down on us today, I think she’s beaming with pride,” said Yee, whose friendship with Hansen spanned several years. “I think she would be extremely proud of all that we have accomplished with her gift. It’s much more than she even imagined at the time.”

Indeed, the Hansen Trust has made significant strides toward fulfilling Hansen’s dream.

In 1997, it funded a first-of-its-kind survey gauging the public’s attitudes toward preserving agriculture, an important document that laid the groundwork for the countywide movement that followed to save open space and farmland.

And it bankrolled a 1999 study that helped develop part of the curriculum, designed to meet the educational needs of local farming-related industries, at the emerging Cal State Channel Islands campus.

The trust in fiscal year 1999-2000 also awarded $10,000 to the new Cal State campus so it could buy a collection of library resources on agricultural business management, marketing and finance.

“My feeling is that they play an extremely important role,” said Ted Lucas, an academic planner at the fledgling campus. “I think what they are doing, informing the public about land use and land-management issues, is so valuable.”

One of the trust’s highest-profile undertakings has been its work with schools. About 400 teachers have gone through a three-day program designed to get them to incorporate lessons about agriculture into the classroom.

Once trained, the teachers have received mini-grants of up to $1,000 from the trust to enhance their curriculum. Most teachers have used the money to build school gardens, an idea promoted by state Supt. of Schools Delaine Eastin several years ago.

About three-quarters of the county’s 190 schools now have gardens, putting Ventura County on track to become the first in the state to fulfill Eastin’s call for a garden in every school.

“We believe one of the best ways for students to learn about agriculture is to let them farm for a while,” said county Supt. of Schools Chuck Weis, a member of the Hansen Trust advisory board.

“And one of the ancillary benefits is that these programs help kids improve reading, writing, math and science knowledge--and that translates right over to test scores,” he said.

Public awareness and education is only half the mission, however.

Over the past eight years, the trust has spent nearly $750,000 to fund a range of research projects designed to keep farmers competitive.

For example, the trust is in its third year of underwriting a study aimed at increasing the size, quality and value of Valencia oranges, a crop that has been pummeled by plummeting prices.

The trust also has funded several projects aimed at reducing pesticide risks in agriculture, including two studies hosted by Oxnard flower grower Wim Zwinkels.

“I think they do very good work,” said Zwinkels, who also sits on a Hansen Trust board that decides how research dollars are spent. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t spend my time on it.”

The next big project will be the creation of the Hansen Agricultural Learning Center, which is under development at the 27-acre Faulkner Farm.

In 1997, the trust purchased the farm, complete with its massive Queen Anne Victorian, with the idea of creating a place where farm advisors could conduct cutting-edge research and practice new growing methods.

It also was envisioned as a place where the public, especially young people, could learn about agriculture and its value to Ventura County and where community members could gather to hash out the critical issues facing a troubled farming industry--one increasingly at odds with its suburban neighbors.