http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/20/grower-valley-have-longtime-partnership/
Grower, valley longtime partners
By Janet Lavelle, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Sunday, December 20, 2009 at 1:48 a.m.
Bill Witman has farmed in the San Pasqual Valley since the 1960s. I started out growing lemons, and
Im still doing it more than 50 years later. It seems my life is connected with the history of this area, he said.
David Brooks / Union-Tribune
Pulling a small folding knife from his pocket, Bill Witman opened the blade and deftly lopped the top off the grapefruit in his hand.
A second swift stroke and he handed a slice of the ruby-red fruit to his visitor. A third swipe and he had a wedge for himself. As he took a bite, juice rolled down his chin that he briskly mopped with a handkerchief.
Witman tossed the rest of the grapefruit under a tree.
A little acidic, he said.
This was late fall and the orchard wouldnt be ready for picking until May. Still, the tangy fruit was delicious to the ordinary palate.
After more than half a century as a citrus grower, most of it as one of the largest growers in the San Pasqual Valley, Witman, 81, has developed a discerning taste and a long view of farming.
In recognition of Witmans work in local agriculture, the San Diego County Farm Bureau has named him its 2009 Farmer of the Year.
Bill Witman really exemplifies true stewardship of the land and agriculture, said Luawanna Hallstrom, last years award recipient and a member of the panel that chose this years honoree. Hes a very important connection between where agriculture has been and where it is today.
Agriculture is a $1.55 billion industry in the county, with avocados and Valencia oranges among the top 10 crops.
Witman Ranch leases 800 acres in San Pasqual Valley from the city of San Diego and owns 350 acres in Ramona. About 450 acres are planted with Valencia oranges, lemons and grapefruit; 200 acres are avocado groves. The ranch also has a dozen acres of palm trees and a joint venture with a sod grower on land too frost-prone for citrus.
Matt Witman, Bills son, oversees most daily operations.
That gives Bill Witman and his wife, Betty, time for travel, including a trip to Antarctica last year and a scuba diving jaunt to Fiji before that.
But Witman still heads to the ranch office every morning and is most at home in jeans and a checkered shirt, walking the groves and talking.
These days, the talk is about the declining market for Valencia oranges in favor of easy-to-peel navels, which has prompted the ranch to plant more lemons. A quarantine because of the Asian citrus psyllid, an insect that can carry a bacterial disease fatal to citrus trees, is also troublesome. The ranch must run its fruit through a conveyor before shipment to sift out leaves that might carry the bug.
On a sunny autumn day when a Santa Ana wind blew down the valley and leaves on the avocado trees clacked together, Witman pointed to tree trunks that bear scars from the 2007 Witch Creek fire.
None of this really worries a man who keeps things in perspective.
I started out growing lemons, and Im still doing it more than 50 years later, he said with a laugh. It seems my life is connected with the history of this area.
Until he was 14, Witmans family lived on Rancho Santa Margarita, before it became Camp Pendleton. His father had leased land for farming before becoming a ranch manager overseeing 20,000 head of cattle. Witman and his brother, Maxey, had the run of the place.
There were no other children out there, just my brother and myself, so we played and fought together. The isolation taught us to be different from most kids more self-reliant.
In 1942, the Marine Corps bought the ranch, and the family rented a house at the beach in Oceanside.
Witman worked at a clothing store until his father, Henry Harry Witman Jr., and partner Bill Sloop leased land for a lemon grove in the San Luis Rey River valley and wanted Bill to work as a foreman.
So he did until 1950, when he was drafted into the Army. Witman spent three years as an MP at Army bases in Georgia and Washington state.
A very serious farmers daughter with a college education agreed to follow him to Washington and marry him six weeks after they met on a blind date in Georgia.
Betty came to Washington with enough money so that she could get a job and make it on her own if she didnt like what she saw, Witman said. I guess she did, because a Baptist minister married us three days after she arrived.
The couple returned to Oceanside in 1953 and rejoined the Witman-Sloop operation, which grew to include vegetable farming.
In the early 1960s, Sloop suggested moving to the San Pasqual Valley.
The city of San Diego had acquired much of the 14,000-acre valley through a lawsuit brought by landowners worried that construction of Sutherland Dam near Ramona would cut the water supply and hurt farming. The city bought the land to protect water rights and leased it back to farmers.
Witman saw this as a chance to provide for a family that eventually would include three children.
I was looking for something that paid more than a ranch foreman, he said.
Rather than borrowing money, Witman found partners willing to invest in the uncertainties of farming. That began a successful business plan he has retained.
He planted Valencias, then added other citrus as partnerships formed and more land was leased. His son became a partner in 1983 after earning a bachelors degree in crop science from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo.
Witman became a member of the forerunner to the San Pasqual/Lake Hodges Planning Group that advises the city on land-use issues. Then, as now, most debates were about protecting a valley dedicated to agriculture and open space.
Hes been active in professional organizations, represented farming interests at public meetings and has been a longtime member of the University of California Riversides Chancellors Agricultural Advisory Council.
Hallstrom said the county farm bureau gave Witman the award in part because of his willingness to share his expertise.
Competition can be harsh among farmers, she said, so thats very impressive. He has a way of speaking that builds trust, even over divisive issues.
Another longtime San Pasqual farmer, Ben Hillebrecht, said he once viewed Witman as a competitor and didnt feel particularly friendly toward him because of it.
That changed over the years. The two would happen upon each other on San Pasqual Valley Road in the dead of night when frost threatened crops and both were out turning on wind machines.
We would stand in the road and get to talking, Hillebrecht said. Bill is just a good, steady American farmer who always tries to do right by everyone.
Janet Lavelle: (760) 476-8201; janet.lavelle@uniontrib.com
BILL WITMAN
Born: Feb. 18, 1928, in Oceanside.
Home: Grew up in Oceanside and on Rancho Santa Margarita, now Camp Pendleton. Lives in San Pasqual Valley.
Witman Ranch: 1,100 acres in San Pasqual Valley and Ramona. Primary crops are citrus and avocado.
Family: Wife, Betty; three grown children.
Business philosophy: Im a partnership kind of guy. I learned early that borrowed money has to be paid back but partners dont.
Bill Witman has farmed in the San Pasqual Valley since the 1960s. I started out growing lemons, and Im still doing it more than 50 years later. It seems my life is connected with the history of this area, he said.
David Brooks / Union-Tribune
SAN DIEGO COUNTY AGRICULTURE
Value: $1,552,221,674
National comparison: San Diego County has the 16th-largest agricultural economy of any U.S. county.
Total acreage in agriculture: 312,766
Median farm size: 4 acres
Crop diversity: A range of microclimates creates nearly 30 types of vegetation communities that support more than 200 agricultural commodities.
Top 10 crops: Indoor flowering and foliage plants, ornamental trees and shrubs, bedding plants, avocados, tomatoes, eggs, cut flowers and foliage, poinsettias, Valencia oranges, herbs.
Source: 2008 San Diego Crop Statistics & Annual Report, San Diego County Department of Agriculture, Weights & Measures.
David Brooks / Union-Tribune
Witman displayed grapefruit, one of several crops he grows. 
