Ventura County agriculture suffers over $170 million in damages from Thomas Fire

Ventura County’s agricultural industry sustained more than $170 million in damages from the Thomas Fire, according to data presented to county supervisors Tuesday morning.

Henry Gonzales, the county’s agricultural commissioner, presented his office’s preliminary Thomas Fire disaster report, which included estimated information on damage losses and yields of destroyed crops. His report noted the Thomas Fire caused $171,296,703 in damages to local agriculture and potentially affected 10,289 acres of irrigated cropland.

Avocado groves were hit the hardest, with 6,603 acres potentially impacted. They were followed by lemon growers with 1,767 potentially impacted acres and orange growers at 541 potentially impacted acres.

Gonzales’ letter to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors is available on the county government’s website (www.ventura.org) and is accompanied by a Dec. 22 document that estimated damage to individual crops. Around 4,030 tons of avocados were lost, at an estimated dollar loss of $10,175,750, followed by lemons, with 7,591 tons lost and an estimated total loss of $5,814,560 and oranges, with 3,680 tons lost and an estimated total loss of 3,370,972, according to data in the document.

The overall gross value of crops in 2016 was $2,110,187,000, according to the most recent Ventura County Crop & Livestock Report.

As the Thomas Fire, which started Dec. 4 near Santa Paula and became California’s largest officially recorded wildfire, had such a large financial impact to agriculture relative to that industry’s value, the numbers can look worrisome on paper, Gonzales said. However, Gonzales noted that the preliminary report factored in structural damage and projected long-term damages, neither of which are factored into the annual Ventura County Crop & Livestock Reports.

Read more:

• Crop report shows decrease in year-to-year value
• Burned by Thomas Fire, Ventura County farmers look toward recovery

The fire burned for 40 days and consumed 281,893 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties before it was finally fully contained Jan. 12

Regardless, fire recovery is expected to be a long process, and it’s still difficult to gauge the scope of financial damage.

“You can’t really know the immediate extent of damage, and we won’t know for some time,” Gonzales said in an interview. “Replacement of a tree can take some while (and) even at five years of full production, a 5-year-old avocado tree won’t compete with a 25-year-old tree. We have been conducting a more precise property-by-property assessment to get a better sense of the actual losses but that report won’t be out until the late spring or early summer.”

Gonzales added that his greatest concern was for Ventura County’s cattle industry, which lost around 120 animals and key grazing land. He stressed that various restrictions would make it difficult for cattle farmers to obtain more grazing land for their livestock and that they could be forced out of Ventura County.

While the damage was clearly significant for some agricultural business owners, farmers such as Leslie Leavens, the chief financial officer at Leavens Ranches, said it would take time to determine the full scope of destruction caused by the Thomas Fire. Leavens’ Ventura property, where crops include avocados, will likely have trees out of commission for several years, she said.

“The grass and hills are starting to green up in places, but it takes a lot longer for trees to recover,” Leavens said in an interview. “It will take some time before we know if they will come back and to what degree, so it’s hard to estimate financial damage. Our trees will come back over time, but we believe that they will be out of production for a couple of years.”

Leavens added that the Thomas Fire’s fiscal damage to local farmers was compounded by the generally volatile prices of avocados and strong competition from Mexico, which has put increased strain on county growers in recent years.

Due to the widespread damage caused by the Thomas Fire, it’s important to note that financial aid and county services are being spread across a variety of industries instead of just agriculture, said Supervisor Steve Bennett. He noted that quantifications of damage to local agriculture, such as Gonzales’ Tuesday report, were an important part of dictating where financial aid and county services were needed.

“Every agricultural property has a different situation, and it isn’t like there’s a formula on what is going to happen (to help them),” Bennett said in an interview. “This was a very impactful fire for residents and many other sectors, such as the restaurant, (retail) and housing sectors. Agriculture is just one of those sectors and we have to work in all of those areas.”

Gonzales’ Tuesday letter to the Board of Supervisors is publicly available on Ventura County’s website. The website also includes a report that notes preliminary damage estimates for individual crops, though the data is only accurate up to Dec. 22. All material is available at: http://bosagenda.countyofventura.org/sirepub/agdocs.aspx?doctype=agenda&itemid=91128.