Agriculture Ventura

With everything from house paint to body deodorants under siege for their air-polluting emissions, regulators are turning to agriculture, one of the last bastions of control-free operations in the state. As a result, local and state growers may lose the use of some pesticides, which emit ozone-causing hydrocarbons. At the very least, manufacturers will likely have to reformulate their California-sold products to use bases other than petroleum products, and their costs will rise.

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to reappoint Earl McPhail as Ventura County's agricultural commissioner, ending a six-month performance review that focused unprecedented attention on a department struggling to balance the needs of farmers with the concerns of their suburban neighbors.

L.R., where are you? And who are you, really? LaMonica Rio? Leilana Reddiclyffe? Lana Rastafaria? Whatever your name, there's a $1,500 check waiting for you at the Oxnard offices of the California Strawberry Festival. All it needs for completion are those two simple, elusive, suddenly magical words that are supposed to come after "Pay to the order of . . ." Languidia Rhizome, maybe? L.R. rushed into the festival office late one October afternoon.

The massive, 70,000-resident Newhall Ranch project--the largest single zoning application ever brought before Los Angeles County--took a major step forward Tuesday as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors held the only public hearing on the matter. The proposal to build a new town from scratch along the banks of the Santa Clara River near the Ventura County border would involve building 24,300 homes, a water reclamation plant and schools.

Culminating months of discussion among 23 business owners, politicians, bureaucrats and farming advocates, a countywide group analyzing the future of agriculture in Ventura County opened the issue to the public Monday night. Members of the policy group, put together by county officials, have been wrestling with the issue of farmland preservation for months. Monday night they presented four scenarios for the future.

Stepping up efforts to protect the area's $1.2-billion-a-year agriculture industry, Ventura County supervisors approved a plan Tuesday aimed at getting farmers and local government officials working together to preserve farmland. The supervisors unanimously approved formation of a task force--made up of farmers, government officials and others--whose primary mission will be to devise long-term farmland protection policies.

County farm leaders voiced strong concerns Wednesday about the possible effect of a proposed merger of Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric on agriculture in Ventura County. The Ventura County Agricultural Advisory Committee, describing a draft environmental impact report on the proposed merger as too vague, voted to ask the California Public Utilities Commission for a more thorough study of the potential effects on farming.

Ventura County officials were criticized Tuesday for planning to grade the site of a proposed jail near Santa Paula before a final environmental study on the project is completed. Speaking before the Board of Supervisors, Fred J. Gientke, general manager of the United Water Conservation District, said county plans to grade the jail site at Todd Road are inappropriate. The district operates the Freeman Diversion Dam about a quarter of a mile southwest of the location.

Crop damage from the cold snap that ended last week has grown to more than $11 million in Ventura County and is still rising, but the few remaining farmers in the San Fernando Valley area suffered few losses, according to agricultural officials and growers. "As each day goes by, more and more damage seems to be showing up" to citrus fruits, avocados and strawberries, Ventura County Agriculture Commissioner Earl McPhail reported.

Santa Clara Valley ranchers lashed out Wednesday at a new plan to designate more than 40,000 acres of farmland near here as an agricultural greenbelt. A voter-backed proposal to indefinitely protect a vast swath of the valley from development prompted bitter protest from most of the 11-person Santa Clara Valley Advisory Committee.