Big Chill’s Losses Reach 7,000 Farm Jobs, $128 Million : Agriculture: An official says crop damage estimates will continue to rise over the next five months.

More than 7,000 Ventura County farm laborers have lost their jobs because of the devastating freeze in December, and total crop damage in the county has increased to an estimated $128 million, the county’s top agriculture official said Tuesday.

The revised estimate, which places the county second only to Tulare County in losses statewide, will continue to climb as crop and tree damage is reassessed over the next five months, said Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail.

“We have estimated 50% loss to avocados, but that could still go as high as 75%,” McPhail said. “This was the worst freeze in Ventura County’s history.”

The estimate of 7,000 to 8,000 unemployed farm workers was the highest made by any official since last month’s freeze.

If the county had escaped the statewide freeze, McPhail said, about 15,000 people would now be employed picking or packing fruit or working in fields. Instead, he said, only about half that number have kept their jobs.

McPhail said a disaster declaration by Gov. Pete Wilson on Friday and Wilson’s request for a similar proclamation from President Bush will clear the way for loans or grants for growers, and facilitate the extension of unemployment benefits for farm workers.

But even if a federal declaration extends benefits from the current 26-week limit to 39 weeks, farm workers and their families face hardship without work, said Victor Palafox, office manager at the United Farm Workers union office in Oxnard.

“It’s insufficient, but what are they going to do?” he said. “They are not going to survive with $90 a week in benefits when their rent is $400.”

McPhail said some workers will be rehired next week as growers begin limited picking in their least damaged lemon, orange and avocado orchards, and shippers reopen packinghouses.

In an effort to expedite aid for workers and growers, the Ventura County Farm Bureau has asked its 1,000 grower members for prompt replies to a survey of the number of employees who were laid off due to the freeze, Farm Bureau Executive Director Rex Laird said.

That number could speed a presidential disaster declaration as well as make United Way funds available to unemployed laborers, Laird said.

“In addition to humanitarian reasons, we want to tide them over as best we can so we have a work force when we get geared back up again,” he said. “You just can’t pull anybody off the street to do what these people do.

“Not only is there skill involved, but there is a lot of judgment required to decide what should be picked for packing,” he said.

Officials at area offices of the state Employment Development Department had no statistics on how many laborers have sought unemployment benefits as a result of the freeze. But Linda Dever, assistant manager at the South Oxnard office, said unemployment numbers usually drop each January as workers return to fields and packinghouses.

“Instead, we have noticed a 30% increase in continuing claims over prior weeks,” she said.

Ventura County suffered its worst agriculture disaster in its history Dec. 21-24 when temperatures fell to 15 degrees in some areas, McPhail said.

The freeze destroyed $57.5 million in lemons and another $27.5 million in avocados. It cost navel and Valencia orange growers $23.4 million. Strawberry farmers lost $4.2 million, nursery owners $7.1 million, and flower and row crop growers a combined $8 million.

A freeze in 1937 was more severe, he said, but the county’s agriculture land was largely planted then with lima beans and sugar beets, far less valuable crops than the lucrative citrus and avocado orchards of today.

Times staff writer Psyche Pascual contributed to this story.

CROP DAMAGE

In millions of dollars

% Crop damage $ value Lemons 35 $57.5 Avocados 50 $27.5 Valencia oranges 35 $21.7 Navel oranges 42 $1.7 Nursery stock 7.5 $7.1 Celery 5 $4.3 Strawberries 5 $4.2 Cut flowers 10 $2.2 Leaf lettuce 10 $1.5 TOTAL $127.9