VENTURA COUNTY'S NEW LINES; OFFICIALS SEEK HARMONY FOR SUBURBANITES, AGRICULTURE.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

Ventura County's rural reaches and sprawling suburbs are a picture of seeming balance between agriculture and development.

But a new study confirms fears that growth continues to come at the expense of agricultural land, particularly prime irrigated expanses on the Oxnard Plain that can yield three crops in a single year.

The county lost 1,065 acres - including 787 acres of prime farmland - to urban use between 1994 and 1996. An additional 7,259 acres of agricultural land was committed to some other use, a kind of canary-in-the-coal-mine warning of greater urban growth to come, according to state Department of Conservation officials who released the biennial Farmland Conversion Report last week.

``It's not only a good chunk of land. This (period) is the tail end of California's recession. Think of where it will be two years from now,'' said Larry Goldzband, the conservation agency's director.

Further, the report noted that Ventura County ranked eighth among the top 10 counties in prime farmland converted to urban use. ``That is the cream,'' Goldzband said.

Troubling trend

Although down slightly from 1992-94, the county's farmland losses contribute to a troubling trend. California lost 17,982 acres of irrigated farmland to urbanization - a 19 percent jump from the 15,098 acres in the previous two-year period.

The report is the sixth issued under a mapping and monitoring program the state began in 1982 to continue work previously done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Intended as a tool for local decision makers, the report comes in the midst of an unprecedented countywide debate over land use and potential impacts on agriculture.

Still the county's leading industry, agriculture yielded $942 million in crops in 1997. The top crops are lemons, strawberries, nursery stock, celery, oranges, avocados, cut flowers, lettuce, broccoli and peppers.

``We're in a heavily urbanized county. As long as we're allowed the tools and the environment where we can be commercially and economically viable, we will continue to operate,'' said Richard Pidduck III, a fourth-generation lemon and avocado grower and Ventura County Farm Bureau president.

Growers won an initial battle this past year when the Ventura County Board of Supervisors approved a ``right to farm ordinance'' sparked by increasing conflicts as more neighborhoods nestled next to fields and orchards. The measure protects growers from nuisance complaints linked to normal farming practices and requires new homeowners be informed that their neighbors operate water pumps and wind machines, drive tractors and spray regulated pesticides.

Preservation role

Yet growers also must recognize their role in preserving rather than paving over the county's agricultural heritage, Pidduck said.

``Farmland has long been considered just a holding device for higher and better land use, and the last years have seen that sentiment change,'' he said. ``Growers are becoming more concerned with the long-range viability of agriculture.''

The Farm Bureau's mission statement was revised last year to call on cities to accept finite geographic limits and the county to strengthen greenbelts. Another provision seeks a greenbelt between Fillmore and the Los Angeles County line, with the massive Newhall Ranch project on the other side.

The new direction came as groups sprouted across the county to push companion initiatives that would mandate voter approval before lands set aside for open space and agriculture can be rezoned for development.

Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources measures calling for such urban growth boundaries will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot in Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Oxnard and Santa Paula, and voters countywide will consider a similar ordinance for areas outside all city boundaries. Moorpark voters will consider a similar proposal that leaves out the massive Hidden Creek project yet to be annexed to the city.

Growers represented by the Farm Bureau favor recommendations from the Agriculture Policy Working Group appointed by the county supervisors. The supervisors last month approved recommendations to form legally binding greenbelts between cities, create urban boundaries around the county's 10 cities, and study appropriate land uses in agricultural and open space zones.

The supervisors also placed a moratorium on any new proposals to convert open space or agriculture land to another land use until at least February. County planners are supposed to make a report then about progress on the various recommendations, said Bruce Smith, manager of the general plan section.

``The question is, if we continue to lose farmland at that rate, at what point would we irrevocably cause the agricultural system to start collapsing?'' he said. ``And then when it starts collapsing, it snowballs.''

Protective measures

There are nearly 100,000 acres of irrigated farmland in Ventura County and an additional 404,000 acres in open space, with some open space zoned for agricultural use, according to county records.

Primary protective measures include growth-control policies that require urban development within city planning boundaries, and the greenbelt agreements between the county and cities. Those are found between Ventura and Santa Paula, Santa Paula and Fillmore, Oxnard and Camarillo, and in the Tierra Rejada Valley between Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Moorpark.

Major developments facing the county on the horizon include:

Hidden Creek, proposing 3,221 homes on 4,300 acres of open space north of Moorpark.

Knightsbridge Holdings Inc., proposing 85 semirural homes on 200 acres of irrigated land near Somis.

Egg City, once the world's largest egg farm, proposing 125 homes on 325 acres in the canyon between Moorpark and Fillmore.

While the state conservation agency primarily is concerned with loss of prime irrigated farmland, Goldzband said all farming activity figures into sustaining the county's industry.

``It supports a lot of jobs, it supports a lot of economic activity,'' he said.

The county has been one of a few studied more closely for farmland losses in the past because it's on the central coast, where conflicts with urban growth are pronounced.

A state conservation agency study of farmland losses between 1969 and 1988 showed a net loss of only 1,460 acres because more than 13,000 acres of mostly hillsides were planted with lemon and avocado orchards. But even that shift brings problems because the soil is not as productive as on the Oxnard Plain and is subject to erosion.

A study released last year by the nonprofit University of California Hansen Trust put annual losses of county farmland at 1,100 acres. It also found the industry generated more than $1 billion in sales and about 20,000 jobs annually.

Pidduck, the Farm Bureau president, said the county can show the rest of the state how to balance agriculture and growth. With no room for expansion, there is little choice.

``When land goes out now, it's a net loss,'' he said. ``At that rate, it adds up.''

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1-2--Color) Farm crews work a hilltop field, left, in Moorpark. Below, new housing projects rise just a developer wall away from working agricultural land in Oxnard.

John Lazar/Daily News

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News