`RIGHT TO FARM' EFFORT; PROPOSED COUNTY LAW AIMS TO EASE GROWERS' HASSLES.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

The affluent and politically vocal neighbors around Jim Pierce's Somis nursery were irritated by the generators running around the clock when his workers loaded plants into refrigerated trucks for the holidays.

So irritated that they called the Sheriff's Department to report the noise.

And they did not like the rumble of the new diesel-powered water pump that Pierce and several other growers installed early this year to irrigate their land.

Although county officials found it to be operating normally, the growers installed muffling devices on the pump to quell those concerns.

``What usually happens is you're farming and people build up around you, then you've got troubles,'' Pierce said. ``It's amazing how much tolerance people have, when they're living in a housing tract, of neighbors' dogs and such. But when people spend a little more money to buy an acre or so, they start getting higher expectations of what they're entitled to.''

A new county law titled the ``Right to Farm Ordinance'' would address just that kind of pique, formally proclaiming that farms - be they noisy, dusty or smelly - have the right to go on doing just what they've always done.

The ordinance, tentatively approved Tuesday by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, exempts growers from nuisance complaints regarding normal farming practices that they have been doing for a year or more.

And it requires that new home buyers in agricultural areas be informed that moving next to a farm means not just a pretty view, but water pumps at night, tractors at all hours of the morning, wafts of manure and a little extra dirt.

``Growers have become accustomed to being regarded as inexpensive providers of open space to our urban neighbors,'' said Richard Pidduck, president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. ``But it's important . . . that our urban neighbors know that the farms are really food factories, producing for our urban neighbors.''

The main point of the ordinance is to safeguard the future of farming in Ventura County, supporters say. Farmers plagued by nuisance complaints sometimes give up or go broke, opening the land to urban development.

``The people who are complaining (about a farmer) will tell you that, `We don't want this guy making noise, but we don't want him to build houses there either.' '' Pierce said. ``So what's the answer?''

Complaints too much

Carolyn Nicholson is still asking that question at her ranch on Santa Rosa Road near Camarillo.

Neighbors from the posh Wildwood Estates on the east and Camelot Estates on the west objected to drifting dust and pesticide spraying, she said. They were so insistent that the helicopter company doing the aerial spraying refused to return.

``We actually stopped (farming) many years ago, due to complaints,'' she said.

When she rented the land to another farmer, the grievances continued.

``The grower came in and tried to plant but received so many complaints that he just was not interested in renewing his lease,'' Nicholson said.

Nicholson has since requested permission to subdivide the 57-acre farm into 17 residential lots. Ironically, her development proposal met obstacles in county government because it would result in the net loss of prime agricultural soils - precisely the scenario the ``Right to Farm'' law seeks to avoid.

That's not to say the law would side with farmers at the expense of residents.

The ordinance outlines a mediation procedure through the agricultural commissioner's office for resolving disputes between residents and farmers.

And it expressly would not supersede any state, federal or local laws such as those concerning air or water quality, health and safety or zoning requirements. So laws governing pesticide use would still be enforced to protect nearby residents.

People such as the Camarillo and Ventura residents who recently protested the use of the pesticide methyl bromide near their homes would still have the opportunity to file grievances with the county agricultural commissioner and the state Department of Pesticide Control.

But those who simply don't like the idea of spraying won't have grounds to gripe.

``Whenever we spray we often get complaints,'' said grower Craig Underwood, who farms in Moorpark, Camarillo, Somis and Oxnard. ``And people have no idea whether it's a toxic spray, nontoxic spray. They just assume if we're spraying it's a problem. And we operate under extremely regulated conditions, so that people are protected, both operators and neighbors.''

Some fear loss of rights

Some neighbors are not reassured, however. Although a Tuesday hearing before the board of supervisors drew only ``Right to Farm'' supporters, a number of residents wrote to the board, saying they feared the ordinance would undermine their rights - particularly with regard to pesticide complaints.

``To give the power of mediating disputes to the ag commissioner's office raises conflict of interest concerns,'' wrote Deborah Bechtel, of Camarillo. ``The mediator should be a neutral party, not someone who's perceived allegiance is to powerful agribusiness interests and has a history of failing to protect the health and property of citizens of Ventura County.''

Alisse Weston, of Newbury Park, worried that the real estate disclosure requirement ``has too great a potential for leaving citizens feeling powerless and resentful,'' and that the ordinance favors chemical farming methods over organic or sustainable practices.

But many other farm neighbors said they treasure the sight of ripe crop rows and are more than willing to endure whatever inconveniences that entails.

``The only lady I heard complain about it was a lady who said the green fumes made her brain swell,'' said Roberta Harder, 61, of Camarillo, whose home abuts a farm. ``Otherwise, everybody that lives here just loves it. Everybody's really happy, because we have a beautiful view.''

John McClain, 46, of Camarillo found the ordinance benign but a bit absurd.

``You're buying a house next to a field, and you don't know it's there?'' he asked. ``We have never had any problems at all. We love the Medfly spraying, too. It kills all the flies around the house.''

More than 30 counties throughout the state have enacted similar ordinances. In Riverside County, where such a law has been in place since 1986, the measure of its success has been in its invisibility, said Riverside County Farm Bureau Manager Bob Perkins.

``If anything, my sense of the ordinance is that it reduces problems, stops them at an early level and takes care of them before they blow up into bigger things,'' he said.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--color in Conejo edition only) Farm workers tend to crops on a field neighboring a housing development in Camarillo.

(2--ran in Simi edition only) Homes in Camarillo look out on an expanse of farmland.

Bob Halvorsen/Daily News