Lemon Aid

SANTA PAULA â€”  For generations the Limoneira Co. and this Santa Clara Valley city grew and prospered together, the farm company’s powerful owners playing an influential role in shaping the community.

But in recent years the fortunes of Santa Paula and Limoneira--who share founders--diverged.

The city became Ventura County’s poor stepchild, its sagging economy reflected in its timeworn downtown.

In contrast, the 104-year-old Limoneira Co. grew to become the county’s largest farming enterprise. And that pace has only intensified in recent months.

Just last week, the company announced its purchase of about 1,400 acres of San Joaquin Valley cropland, underlining its status as a premier grower of lemons and oranges that ships citrus around the world.

But now privately held Limoneira--a 600-employee company that farms nearly 7,000 acres--is pondering a reunification of goals with Santa Paula proper: The company’s development arm is working with the city on a plan to build 900 homes, a school and a hotel on 543 acres, mostly on Limoneira land in the vast greenbelt that separates Santa Paula and Fillmore.

“Until recently we’ve kept a low profile--it’s just our nature,� said Alan Teague, chairman emeritus of the Limoneira board and grandson of C.C. Teague, a former congressman credited with modernizing the state’s citrus industry.

“I think you’ll see Limoneira be more in the forefront in trying to bring Santa Paula back on its feet,� he said. “I think all of us have a sense of obligation to the community. The community has been good to us and our forebears.�

And leading the way is Pierre Tada, 39, a youthful chief executive officer and president appointed earlier this year after directing the company’s finances for a decade.

Tada maintains that Santa Paula must “reposition� itself among Southern California cities.

“The economy of the city of Santa Paula is very, very poor,� he said. “It’s been years of maintaining policies that are not very favorable to business. It’s been years of trying to maintain the status quo as the world has changed.�

*

Tada insists Limoneira has no immediate development plans for the so-called Teague-McKevett Ranch just east of the city. But he believes that project would help the city’s decaying downtown.

Not all city officials have welcomed the company’s new aggressive posture, at least in real estate development.

Councilman John Melton is one who worries that any intrusion into the 34,200-acre greenbelt could set an unwelcome precedent.

“The Santa Clara Valley [has] really been looked to as one of the bastions of long-term farming in the county,� said Larry Rose, president of the Ventura County Agricultural Land Trust and Conservancy. “The way Limoneira goes is the way the whole valley will go.�

And some students of Santa Paula history say Limoneira has not always led the quaint farm city of 25,000 in the right direction.

A June 1968 article in the California Historical Society’s journal accused Santa Paula’s “lemon barons�--and by extension Limoneira--of perpetuating a “semi-feudal system� consisting of a low-paid, low-skilled work force suited for picking fruit and that discouraged manufacturers from moving to the city.

“It was the expansion of citrus farming, together with the failure of competing forms of economic activity, which determined that Santa Paula should grow at a rate slower than that of any other town in the county,� wrote Michael R. Belknap.

Belknap contends the city became overly dependent on the philanthropy of Limoneira’s founding families that built everything from the city’s hospital to its library.

At one time those families controlled the city’s banks and water. They founded Sunkist, the huge citrus fruit marketing cooperative. They became mayors and congressmen and could catch the ear of presidents.

*

Today about 80% of the company’s shares are still held by the descendants of just five families, said board member Robert Sawyer, himself a step-descendant of Samuel Edwards, whose land and assets were merged in 1985 with Limoneira.

The families trace their lines to co-founders Nathan Blanchard and Wallace Hardison, C.C. Teague, Edwards and, now, board member Ron Michaelis, who recently joined after selling his Porterville nursery and farm to Limoneira.

In recent years, the influence of those who run Limoneira has diminished in Santa Paula. Yet echoes of past power remain.

Alan Teague, who himself abandoned a fast-track political career after becoming mayor of Santa Paula at age 32, was instrumental in establishing the fast-growing nonprofit Ventura County Community Foundation.

Board member Dr. Samuel Edwards is chief administrator of Ventura County Medical Center and was chairman of Santa Paula-based Citizens State Bank until recently.

The company and its founding families are still major donors to Santa Paula charities and civic projects, including the city’s restored railroad depot, community center and parks.

The need for continuing growth and change is essentially the operational maxim of Limoneira, a company whose sales exceed $40 million a year and that has more than tripled its planted acreage in 12 years.

“For 100 years they’ve been the industry leader in the county as far as citrus goes,� said Rose, who is also sales manager of Saticoy’s Brokaw Nursery. “Everybody keeps an eye on Limoneira as far as what they’re planting.�

But Brokaw is losing Limoneira’s business because of the company’s nursery purchase from Michaelis. That gives Limoneira a source of profitable lemon and avocado trees to replace two-thirds of its marginal Valencia orange crop in Ventura County, said Chris Taylor, head of farming operations.

*

And the 1,400 acres of citrus orchards the company purchased from the Michaelis family will help Limoneira become a true year-round farming operation and a steady source of high-quality fruit.

As the company’s name suggests, Limoneira has long been among the leading lemon producers in a county that is the nation’s largest producer of the fruit.

Limoneira accounts for almost 7% of Ventura County’s 26,630 acres of lemons.

But Limoneira is more than lemons. It farms 1,137 acres of avocados and is the state’s second-largest grower. And in 1995 Limoneira purchased a 22% stake in Oxnard-based Mission Produce, an international packer, processor and marketer of avocados and specialty fruit.

So large is Limoneira that the company accounts for about 8% of all the fruit that flows through the huge Sunkist cooperative, Tada said.

Limoneira’s broad-based expansion means it is ideally positioned to compete on a global scale. And its proximity to Sunkist’s shipping hub at the Port of Hueneme gives it ready access to lucrative overseas markets.

*

Yet, Limoneira’s increasing clout means it is regarded with suspicion. The close-knit local agricultural community is rife with rumors that Limoneira’s recent purchases show it is anticipating the day the Santa Clara Valley is paved over.

But Tada said the company has no plans to move from its historic 60-acre complex on Cummings Road that includes a packinghouse, warehouses, a park, basketball courts and aging buildings converted into offices.

“In order for us to stay competitive, we need year-round property. And if we leave here, we won’t have year-round product,� Tada said.

Yet it is the company’s foray into development through its Limoneira Land Co. that scares some Santa Clara Valley residents. Farmers are already worried about the implications of a 70,000-resident community planned by Newhall Land & Farming Co. near Magic Mountain across the Los Angeles County line.

But Limoneira officials say investments in agricultural properties statewide are proof the company is first and foremost a farming concern.

“We don’t acquire properties with the attitude that the property will fit into some real estate boom,� said company board member Robert Sawyer.

*

Still, with Limoneira looking to eventually develop farmland on Santa Paula’s eastern flank, its long-term intentions are suspect.

Although that loss of 543 greenbelt acres would be offset, critics question whether it is wise to allow builders to nibble away at the valued open space.

“[Development] will throw a question mark out into the valley of what is the longevity of farming in the area,� Rose said.

Contrary to a state study that described its Teague-McKevett parcel as prime farmland, Limoneira officials insist that 83% is either unsuitable for agriculture or has low value due to poor soil and drainage.

The best way to protect agriculture, Tada said, is to grow crops on the best land. That will staunch development pressure.

“A lot of lands that are being called prime ag lands are just green,� Tada said. “Just because you put some land-use designation on a piece of property doesn’t mean the business you put on that property is going to survive.�

Santa Paula Councilman Jim Garfield downplays concerns about Limoneira’s development intentions. Santa Paula residents simply are not interested in allowing any developer to pave over the valley, he said.

“Some people say, ‘Oh, they’re going to be a development company and develop the valley.’ And I don’t think that’s true.�

William Fulton, publisher of a statewide planning newsletter, sees the debate over the Limoneira parcel as overblown. Santa Paula is edging toward urban development, and in the overall scheme of things the Limoneira tract is a pretty small piece of land, he said.

“I’m not sure this is going to make a huge difference policy-wise in the Santa Clara Valley,� he said. “I would say in Santa Paula the probable level of urban development over the next 10 to 20 years is not very great compared to east Ventura . . . or Fillmore, which is going to become Newhall-ized.�

*

In any event, officials acknowledge that any development must overcome Santa Paula’s image as the poorest Ventura County community.

Sales are slow at Limoneira’s initial housing project, Vista Pointe, a 25-acre hillside tract of 28 homes. Only four of eight homes have sold since construction began in November.

Teague ran into a similar problem when his company tried to develop an adjacent upscale tract of $400,000 homes in the 1980s. The project was abandoned when the market crashed.

Eventually, city and Limoneira officials hope, the small-town charms of Santa Paula will draw people looking to escape urban areas. A new downtown revitalization project is among the steps being taken to renew the area.

So like the benign patriarchs of bygone generations, the Limoneira partners say they want to do right by a place they have nurtured and that has sustained them in return.

“One unique thing about Limoneira is that everyone on our board has family roots right here,� Taylor said. “They are very attached to the land, they’re very attached to making sure they’re here for the future.�