A Tough Row to Hoe : Bill Chill of ’90 Takes Toll on County Farmers and Laborers : Workers

It was midmorning Thursday, and Raul Roa was sitting in a small, dimly lighted room at the Campo Tres S’s labor camp in Oxnard talking with five other fieldworkers and listening to the wind howl outside.

Normally at this time of year, the six men would be part of the labor force harvesting Ventura County’s extensive lemon and avocado crops, they said. But because of an Arctic cold front that has wreaked havoc with the county’s $806-million farming industry, employers told Roa and his friends that they weren’t needed.

When asked how he will pay his bills and send money to his family in Guanajuato, Mexico, without the winter work, Roa, 22, shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll just wait until things get better,” he said.

Roa and other farm workers are the newest casualties of the recent freezing weather. And employees at canneries, packinghouses and transportation companies might also be laid off because of the crop damage, county agriculture officials said.

“There is no question in my mind that Ventura County is going to feel a ripple effect in the economy,” Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, said.

One county agriculture official estimated that the Arctic front that swept through the county last week devastated more than $100 million in crops.

Many farming experts, however, say the extent of the damage to the current citrus crop will not be known for another three weeks. The damage to crops such as strawberries, which were just beginning to blossom when the cold weather hit, will not be known until April, they said.

County avocado growers lost more than a third of next year’s harvest, said Avi Crane, industry affairs director of the California Avocado Commission. Based on last year’s $55-million harvest, the loss could come to about $18 million, Crane said. Statewide, avocado growers lost 15% to 20% of the harvest, he said.

“There is not going to be as much fruit to harvest,” Laird said. “How much? We don’t know. It’s just going to take time for all this to come to fruition.”

To make matters worse, meteorologists are predicting that another cold front will plunge temperatures into the low 20s by Saturday. The frigid weather is expected to continue through Tuesday.

Ralph DeLeon, president of Samco, a Santa Paula labor contractor, said the freeze already has forced him to reduce--from 18 to two--the size of a crew that he employs to operate a local plant nursery. He said most of the young ornamental plants grown in the nursery were killed by the frost.

On Saturday, DeLeon laid off half of the 200 fieldworkers he had hired to pick oranges. He said, however, that he is considering hiring the 100 workers back to try to salvage the oranges for use as juice before the anticipated cold front hits this weekend.

The extent of damage is easier to assess after crops begin to thaw and decay is visible, DeLeon said.

Tom Pecht, owner of a 125-acre lemon and avocado ranch in Somis, said he usually hires a crew of from 40 to 50 workers to harvest his crop. Because of damage to his crops, he is uncertain how many he will need.

“When it comes time to pick, there isn’t going to be anything to pick,” he said.

He estimated that the freeze damaged 50% of his avocado crop and 30% of his lemon crop.

Most migrant fieldworkers live with their families in Mexico during the winter months and will escape the immediate effect of the cold weather. But, Pecht said, “It’s going to really hurt the labor and those people’s families down the road.”

The bulk of migrant farm workers return to the United States in March and April to harvest the spring and summer crops, farmers said.

“If you don’t have anything to pick, there are no jobs,” Pecht said.

For Roa and his friends at Campo Tres S’s, there is little else to do but stand in front of the labor camp hoping that an employer will drive up and offer work.

On Thursday, they had no offers so they went inside and talked hopefully about finding work when the strawberry harvest begins in a few months.