Farming Fading Away in Once-Fertile Valley

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO —  In the northernmost reaches of this historic city, the citrus trees tell a story.

Left unirrigated, the trees that line Camino Capistrano have withered, testimony to the fading farming experience in this fertile valley, farmers say.

On Tuesday, city voters decide whether to approve a $21-million bond issue to purchase some of the city’s dwindling farmland to convert it into a park. But regardless of the measure’s fate, farming seems destined to disappear here, as it has elsewhere in Orange County. If the bond issue fails, the land will surely be snatched up by developers eager to build homes, offices and shopping centers, say longtime residents.

“For the past three years, we’ve had difficulty just keeping up with our expenses,” said Shig Kinoshita, who came with his three brothers to the Capistrano Valley in 1955 to farm the flatlands south of the citrus groves near Doheny State Beach. It is his land that would be purchased if the bond issue passes. “Farming in this valley is over.”

Local farmers, who have been suffering from economic problems in recent years, say they are eager to sell to the highest bidder. Some already have.

For Jean Lacouague, who was born in San Juan Capistrano in 1923 and graduated from the old Capistrano High School in 1940, the end of the citrus farming life he knew came in 1986. He sold 256 acres, the bulk of the acreage his family had been farming since 1910, to Canadian developers, the Rivendell Corp. Homes now surround the five hillside acres he has left.

“A farm doesn’t work around here anymore for the same reason you can’t run a mom-and-pop grocery store anymore,” said Lacouague, who served as the local fire chief for 14 years. “It’s economy of scale. A farmer today has to get double his return or he’s history. Things like water and fertilizers cost 10 times what they used to. And you can’t even get supplies anymore. You’ve got to go to Riverside County to get things.”

City Councilman Lawrence Buchheim, whose family of citrus farmers moved to San Juan Capistrano near the turn of the century, shares the laments of the local farmers.

“The farmers are saying, why lose money growing oranges. It’s impossible for the smaller farmer to stay in business,” Buchheim said.

His comments are echoed by Bill Bathgate, whose father arrived in 1923 to farm citrus groves and English walnuts.

“As far as things like oranges and avocados are concerned, the numbers just don’t add up,” Bathgate said. “We’re in an isolated area now, as far as agriculture is concerned. The processing plants are too far away. Most of the groves weren’t even breaking even.”

In 1977, the City Council attempted to slow the disappearance of farming by writing a 230-acre agricultural preserve into the city’s general plan.

Tuesday’s election will decide whether 140 acres of that land will become park.

If the measure passes, the city is talking about creating parks and ball fields, with the possibility of a token amount of land put aside as a tribute to the area’s farming heritage, City Councilman Anthony Bland said. If it fails, he said, the developers will likely cash in on the farmers’ need to sell.

“If the bond fails, you’ll see the farmers walk into the City Council and demand a zone change,” Buchheim said. “They’ve hung on as long as they can.”

Kinoshita, who moved to the valley from Anaheim, saw the same thing happen there.

“Our farm was two or three miles away from Disneyland, but when it went in there, we saw the writing on the wall,” he said.

Sitting in the old red house on his 56 acres near Del Obispo School, a house built by Joel Congdon in 1878, Kinoshita said that over the years he has survived the inclemencies of weather, when freezes and floods nearly devastated his harvest.

Today, however, the Kinoshita family has moved into other pursuits. His son and daughter both went to college and into business, as did the three sons of his brother, Bob.

“We never encouraged them to go into farming,” he said. “When we came here the whole valley was farming. But slowly everyone has sold and moved out.”

The beginning of a new way of life for the valley actually started with the Santa Ana Freeway, which pushed through his property in 1957, Buchheim said.

“The road itself started to divide the land,” he said. “Little by little after that, people began to subdivide. Outsiders would come in and buy some land, divide it up into four parcels, sell off three and keep one. That’s how the community as we know it now got started.”

Buchheim’s family has prospered because of its landholdings, but he still has feelings for the old days.

“I would still be farming if I could,” he said. “There’s no better feeling than sitting on 500 acres and saying, ‘I’m the master of what I own.’ But you can’t go on losing $20,000 a year when you’ve got people offering you millions for your property.”