Oxnard crop duster Barrie Turner knows a battle when he sees one.
As he skims over towering stalks of sweet corn at daybreak, sprinkling a watery cocktail of insecticide and nutrients with each swooping pass, the former Vietnam helicopter pilot can easily list his industry's enemies.
Urban encroachment. Loss of farmland. And environmental activists who are targeting his low-flying pesticide runs for elimination.
All have served to cut into business for Aspen Helicopters, Ventura County's only crop-dusting company. In fact, the company has reduced its crop-dusting fleet at the Oxnard Airport from five helicopters in the late 1980s to three today.
"People have the wrong impression of what we're doing out there," said Turner, 63, who grew up in Ojai and has logged more than 10,000 hours buzzing the county's row crops and orchards since 1966.
"All three of the pilots here were born and raised in this county. This is not just some fly-by-night operation coming in here to slop this stuff around," he said. "We've got roots here; we've got families here. We're not here to poison the world."
Crop dusting is not what it used to be.
Once a place where fixed-wing aircraft would swoop down to unleash great clouds of toxic pesticides, local farmland now is dusted by helicopters using satellite systems to guide their movements and pinpoint the drops.
Moreover, government restrictions have toned down the potency of pesticides that can be used and many of the chemicals applied on local crops are organically based, posing fewer environmental problems, pilots and agricultural officials say.
Still, the industry is flying in the face of adversity.
Statewide, the number of crop dusters fell from about 1,200 in the mid-1980s to 408 today, squeezed by tough environmental laws, soaring insurance costs, mounting homeowner complaints and the loss of more than a million acres of farmland over the past 20 years.
The battle to stay in business is reflected in Ventura County.
There used to be three crop-dusting companies based in the county in the 1980s; now there is one. Business dried up as the county lost thousands of acres of farmland in the past 10 years and as growers moved to crops, such as strawberries, that have less need for aerial spraying.
But perhaps the tightest squeeze has come from homeowners and environmentalists, who have long complained about the noise, dust and health risks crop dusters leave behind.
