2007's smaller-than-normal citrus, avocado crops blamed on natural disasters

06:51 PM PST on Saturday, December 15, 2007

By KIMBERLY PIERCEALL
The Press-Enterprise

A farmer's livelihood largely depends on the kindness of an uncontrollable Mother Nature. Some years are good. Some are bad.

2007 was simply strange.

A year that started with a bitter freeze unheard of in nearly a decade ended with fire that ripped through Temecula avocado groves. In between, Inland crops endured heat, drought and wind. Only recently did nature send something they desperately needed: rain.

"It was kind of a disaster all the way around," said Steve Pastor, executive director of the Riverside County Farm Bureau. "A lot of growers lost a lot of money."

Few believe a year like 2007 will repeat itself, but industry experts said growers are embracing crop insurance and bracing for the drought to extend into a ninth year, as well as for less production because of mandated water cutbacks in southwestern Riverside County.

"The natural disasters have been with farmers and ranchers since the beginning of time," Pastor said. "That's something that's not going away and it's something that farmers have learned to live with throughout the ages."


Icicles insulate oranges during a freeze in January 2007. The region's orchard crops were hit hard by wind and cold.

It was the natural disasters coupled with bureaucratic measures -- most recently a ruling by the Rancho California Water District that will cut water to Temecula area growers -- that have made the year doubly difficult.

The natural calamities also followed a year in which crop values dropped $66.2 million in Riverside County and $129.3 million in San Bernardino County. Both regions have had agriculture acreage eaten up by developers seeking large parcels of prime land. Less land has led to less production at a time when the value of what is produced, such as milk, doesn't keep up with inflation, according to the most recent San Bernardino County Department of Agriculture/Weights and Measures report.

Some growers were more successful than others, though.

Chuck Hills, who manages and owns orange groves in Redlands, spent many a sleepless night in January running wind machines, irrigating, and lighting heaters in the fields to keep his oranges from freezing.

"Some people did very well, and some people didn't harvest anything," he said. "We probably fared better than a lot of areas in the state."

Avocado growers who hadn't experienced a freeze like January's for 17 years were less prepared. Many had started setting up groves in colder climates in southwestern Riverside County and San Diego County thinking that a devastating freeze was a far-off possibility, said Guy Witney, director of industry affairs for the California Avocado Commission.


"We got very, very complacent about freezes, having not experienced a freeze since 1990," he said. "It's just human nature that we started seeing groves planted in areas that were historically cold."

The freeze made for a less-than-fruitful 2007 harvest: 259 million pounds, compared to the record 560 million pounds that were sent to market in 2006.

A moderate summer and spring allowed next year's crop to mature. Then came wind and fire.

"It was absolutely an abnormal year," Witney said. "The 2008 crop was on the trees when the wind and the fires hit. That was one of the most devastating events in our industry's history."

San Diego County lost 3,500 acres of avocado groves out of 24,600 to fire, about 14 percent. It was devastating to growers who lost acreage, he said. Riverside County lost 300 acres out of 7,700, about 4 percent.



Severe wind knocked off of trees 35 million to 45 million pounds of avocados in Southern California, Witney said.

However, the groves left standing appear to have produced more fruit, and a heartier fruit than was harvested in October just before the fires hit.

The commission expects growers to harvest about 375 million pounds of avocados next year.

California-grown oranges endured blistering cold in January alongside strawberries, artichokes and avocados. Gov. Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency after initial estimates that $1 billion in crops were damaged statewide, including 75 percent of California's citrus crop.

The last time it had been that cold, in 1998, frost destroyed 85 percent of the state's citrus, an estimated $750 million loss.

But oranges and lemons grown in San Bernardino County turned out to be more resilient than expected. Just 20 to 25 percent of the region's citrus was destroyed, according to preliminary county estimates.

"Statewide, the damage wasn't as nearly as bad as it should have been," said John Gardner, deputy agricultural commissioner for San Bernardino County. "For whatever reason they got really lucky."

Timing probably played a role since growers and packinghouses were careful to keep fruit on the trees while the damage was being assessed, which allowed the maturing fruits to fend off the effects of cold, Gardner added.

"A lot of the fruit kind of healed up," he said.

Nonetheless, the citrus freeze continues to affect companies dependent on California-grown fruit.

"The freeze did hurt us and it's still hurting us," said Tom Carmody, chief executive officer of Perricone Juices in Beaumont.

The oranges the company is using have been yielding 40 percent less juice than normal, which makes each drop that much more costly.

Carmody said California-grown lemons are hard to come by. He has avoided importing Mexican-grown citrus.

"The fact that we have anything at all is good," he said.

Reach Kimberly Pierceall at 951-368-9552 or kpierceall@PE.com

Source: http://www.pe.com/business/local/stories/PE_Biz_D_agriculture16.1b10a9a.html