CITRUS IMPORTING OPPOSED.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Daily News Staff Writer

Dangling from branches in orchards across Ventura, the bright lemons are the county's largest crop and one local ranchers fear could be threatened by disease from Argentine imports.

In what they consider a landmark battle, local citrus growers have joined forces in an uncommon effort to fight a proposed U.S. Department of Agriculture rule to allow citrus imports from the South American country.

``We're dealing with a watershed case where science was supposed to be the gatekeeper but where there's the potential to throw science out the window for trade politics,'' said Pierre Y. Tada, chief executive officer of the Santa Paula-based Limoneira Company and president of the rancher coalition the U.S. Citrus Science Council. ``We're willing to compete with anybody in the world, but don't bring us disease and pests that cause us to lose markets.''

The USDA is scheduled to hold a public hearing today in Thousand Oaks on its proposal, which was introduced in August for an extended review period that will close Thursday.

Lemons are a $217.5 million annual crop in Ventura County, the nation's largest producer of the fruit, and local growers helped organize the U.S. Citrus Council that has spent more than $125,000 since summer to employ scientists and other experts to make the case against allowing importation of lemons, oranges and grapefruit from Argentina.

Council members say the issue is not protection from competition but from fruit diseases that growers have fought to keep out or eradicate from California orchards.

Growers said the fruit diseases that could be brought from Argentina include black spot and sweet orange scab. While lemons are the county's top crop, grown on 26,000 acres, oranges rank fifth, grown on more than 11,000 acres and bringing in more than $70 million a year.

Growers said Argentine citrus would come from regions inhabited by the Mediterranean fruit fly. Millions of dollars have been spent fighting the Medfly in Southern California. The battle periodically has included the controversial spraying of malathion from helicopters over entire neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.

USDA officials said the proposal is standard trade fare in a global economy. ``We have to base our decision on science, not protectionism,'' said Isi Siddiqui, a deputy undersecretary in the USDA.

The region's ranchers don't believe the proposed safeguards are reliable. The ranchers have bipartisan backing from U.S. Reps. Elton Gallegly, R-Oxnard, and Brad Sherman, D-Woodlands Hills, who say much more study is needed.

``They've got to go back to the drawing board,'' Sherman said. ``These (proposed) regulations are not going to provide adequate protection from a host of diseases and pests, the most known of which is the Medfly. . . . After Southern Californians have lived through malathion spraying, this is an issue not only for those in agriculture, but also for anyone who lives in Southern California.''

Sherman said residents in Ventura County, when they recently adopted local measures to preserve open space, made it clear they want to preserve agriculture in the county.

``You can't save our agricultural resources if you can't make sure that agricultural pests are not brought in that could destroy Ventura County lemons,'' he said.

Under the proposal, Argentina would be required to institute pest-control measures in areas where ranchers want to export fruit to the United States. The measures include clearing fallen leaves and branches that can serve as reservoirs for black spot and treating the fruit with a spray that has been known to control both sweet orange scab and black spot.

For the Medfly, the proposal calls for cold treatment, which has been an accepted way to rid the fruit of larvae before shipping, said USDA officials.

``It has been used by California growers to move their citrus out of quarantined areas,'' Siddiqui said.

The deputy undersecretary said the proposal involves only Argentina and would not allow citrus to be imported from other countries. A similar proposal died in 1995.

U.S. citrus growers remain strongly opposed. Tada said the proposal, if adopted, would be a dramatic shift in U.S. policy and a threat to local agriculture, which is Ventura County's largest private industry.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) A grower at the Santa Paula-based Limoneira Ranch shows lemons in four stages, immature to mature, from the same tree. Lemons are the top cash crop in Ventura County.

(2) Chris Taylor, a Limoneira Ranch official, looks over an orchard. County ranchers oppose importing citrus from Argentina.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News