County’s Farms Are Ever Fewer, Yet 1986 Was the 3rd-Best Year

When real estate developers found Orange County to be the perfect place for residential and office space nearly 30 years ago, local farmers scrambled to hold onto their land and remain an economic force in what then was one of the state’s major agricultural areas.

But soaring land prices ultimately made it more profitable to build rather than to plow on much of the county’s agricultural land, so the number of farming acres has steadily decreased over the years.

Still, Orange County’s remaining ranchers and growers posted their third-best year on record in 1986, with the total gross value of crops reaching $254.3 million, according to the county Agriculture Department’s annual report.

That money came largely from crops raised on a mere 33,000 acres--just 6.6% of the county’s total of 500,480 acres. About 30,000 acres of mostly untillable hillside land is used for grazing cattle, boosting total agricultural acreage in the county to 63,134 acres in 1986.

Judging by gross-value figures, Orange County agriculture is far from a dying industry, said Wayne Appel, county deputy agricultural commissioner.

Although development has caused land prices to soar, farmers in the county survive and profit by using undesirable land and by growing high-income crops, he said.

There are about 700 farmers still

active in the county, according to Thelma Moses, director of the Orange County Farm Bureau; they are taking advantage of land that nobody else wants, making it produce on a year-round basis.

“They utilize as much of the land as possible. That’s one reason why the No. 1 crop is nursery stock, which is incredibly productive,” Moses said. Growers raise their crops on unwanted land left fallow by developers.

On such land is Bordier’s Nursery, lying outside El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The noise of the military jets flying over the 200-acre nursery makes office and residential use of the land virtually impossible. But the nursery has been turning out ornamental landscaping plants for about 15 years.

“Nobody would want to live here, so we grow our items here,” said Bob Metz, a Bordier spokesman.

Still, intensive development has definitely hurt farmers, said Paul Murai, who co-owns Murai Farms in Irvine with his brothers.

“The land is valuable, and sometimes agriculture doesn’t pay if you are naturally going to get more money from development,” he said.

The location of Murai Farms, also near the El Toro air base, helps keep developers away, Murai said. The farm produces strawberries, tomatoes, squash and green beans.

Because there has been a strong decline in agricultural acreage over the years, county farmers are choosing crops--like strawberries and asparagus--with higher value per acre, said Barbara Buck, a spokeswoman at Western Growers Assn.

‘People In, Agriculture Out’

But Moses is pessimistic about the future.

“Farmers will gradually be gone. Sure, I think it will take a while, but it is a realistic viewpoint. When there’s a good place for agriculture, it is also a pleasant place for houses. People come in, and agriculture moves out.”

While there is agricultural land left, however, Orange County farmers and ranchers are making the most of it.

Ornamental horticulture remained the top product in the county in 1986, with sales from nurseries and cut-flower growers totaling $121.1 million. While that figure was down 6% from $129.2 million in 1985, it still accounted for nearly half the total gross for all agricultural products.

Strawberries placed second on the list of top crops in 1986, bringing growers $64.3 million, a 2.7% increase from $62.6 million in 1985. Valencia oranges, long a major crop in the county, brought in $24.8 million.

Values on the annual top crop list drop sharply after that, plunging to $5.5 million for celery, the county’s fourth-largest cash crop in 1986. Avocados rounded out the top five with a gross value of $5.3 million.

Beef Cattle in Decline

Meanwhile, the beef cattle industry, which has been declining steadily for more than a decade, continued to fall in the financial standings, barely making the list of million-dollar agricultural products with gross receipts to ranchers for the year of $1.05 million, down 41% from $1.8 million in 1985.

The Irvine Co. decided two years ago to get out of the beef cattle business, but it has leased much of its grazing land to independent ranchers, keeping total acreage used for grazing at about the same level.

Rancho Mission Viejo is nowthe largest cattle operation in the county, with 5,000 head.

In 1966, the county Agriculture Department reported that the animal industry--largely beef cattle--was the top producer in the county with gross receipts of $29.4 million.

The decline was caused largely by an enormous escalation in the cost of feeding and slaughtering cattle--which sharply reduced the amount of land used for cattle grazing.

The frantic pace of development has also driven a large number of dairy farms and egg and poultry operations out of the county, further reducing the value of animal products.