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Central Coast Farm & Ranch, 5156 McGrath Street, Ventura, CA (2024)

06/24/2024

I am a farmer

Matt Conroy
Good Farms
Qxnard
Age: 49

WHAT WE GROW
Strawberries

BIGGEST CHALLENGE
To constantly stay ahead and find that competitive edge, whether it’s with technology or with cultural practices.

GREATEST SOURCE OF PRIDE
Showing off the ranch and what we do. Whether it is to foreign dignitaries or a group of school kids, I take great pride in what we are able to do here.

WHY I DO WHAT I DO
It’s what I love. I have the ability to put a smile on people’s faces. Not very many people can say that.

HOBBIES
I enjoy being with my two sons, whether it’s at a sporting event, camping or even just hanging out at home.

WORDS I LIVE BY
“It can’t be that hard.”

WHY I AM A FARM BUREAU MEMBER
Farm Bureau has always held a special place with me as it has always been at the forefront with information and community within the ag space. It’s a great organization that truly has farmers’ best interests at its core.

To recommend a subject for “I Am a Farmer,” email [email protected].
Karen Quincy Loberg photo

06/24/2024

Searching for Central Coast farms and wineries? There’s an app for that

Allan Hancock College students create mobile directory
as part of viticulture program
By Kim Lamb Gregory

Anyone planning a ramble through the hills of Santa Barbara County in search of vineyards, wineries and farmers’ markets won’t miss even the most remote farm stand with the help of a new mobile application developed by Allan Hancock College students and their professor.

With the help of a team of agriculture/viticulture students, one alumnus and a staff member, Allan Hancock College Professor of Viticulture and Enology Alfredo Koch, Ph.D., developed AgriDiscovery, a free app which lists the location of 300 agriculture or wine-related destinations—and counting.

“It’s very interactive. It connects users with produce growers, honey producers, farmers’ markets, vineyards—mainly places with products available directly to consumers,” Koch said. “Some of the wines in this region have global acclaim.”

The app familiarizes users with agricultural destinations in Santa Barbara County, but the app team plans to branch out into San Luis Obispo County. Jessica Blackburn, who was on the student team and earned her associate degree in science/winemaking in May, called it a great way for smaller vendors to get the word out about their products.

“This app is another tool to be used by the consumer, especially with the level of tourism up here,” she said. “When you’re on the backroads you can’t really see all the tasting rooms and vineyards.”

The idea to launch AgriDiscovery came to Koch because the college had so much information about area wineries and agriculture. He knew of similar apps developed in the wine country of France, and—closer to home—Paso Robles. He thought this project would be a win/win for agriculture vendors, visitors and the college.

USDA grant funded project

To get started Koch wrote a grant proposal and received $126,000 of funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service. He then assembled a team of eight paid ag/viticulture students to build the database of agricultural destinations. The AgriDiscovery team also had help from 2018 Hancock viticulture alumnus Greg Fields, Hancock Agriculture Coordinator Erin Krier and six student volunteers.

Buy-in to the project was enthusiastic, largely because of Koch himself.

“He’s 100 percent the reason I got involved with this in the first place,” Blackburn said. “He’s one of the most motivating, dedicated professors I’ve ever had and he makes everything so interesting and fun.”

Koch was raised in Argentina where he worked at his grandfather’s vineyard from the age of five, then later earned advanced degrees in viticulture and agronomy at UC Davis and California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo.

As head of the agri-business department, Koch oversees two-year tracks in viticulture, winemaking, and the wine business at Allan Hancock, where students have their own vineyard and bonded winery. He’s been there 20 years.

“I love teaching,” he said.

Koch put the app into development in November of 2022. The small team divided up about 350 vineyards and tasting rooms, reaching out and assembling information. “Right now the app is focused on Santa Barbara County, but long term, this could be utilized for the entire state,” Blackburn said.

Agricultural Science major Daniella Urena, 19, emailed agricultural vendors and entered all the information about their locations, hours and any photos they had on their website into the database.

“We would introduce ourselves, usually use Alfredo’s name, and explain we’ve launched a new app and we’re excited to use this tool and ask if they’d like to be included,” Urena said.

When contacted by the students, vendors like Jessi Smith, general manager of Vega Vineyard and Farm in Buellton, thought it was a great idea and enthusiastically agreed. It’s still early, but she believes visitors are catching on.

Koch and the students say the app will eventually enable individual farmers and vintners to get a password and update their link with specific varietals, hours of operation, and special deals and events. Koch called it a “work in progress.”

“We would like to expand and improve, so we are contacting alumni, ag commissioners, vintners and we’re now trying to join the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce,” he said. “I believe this tool is going to be really useful if you are a tourist or even if you live here.”

AgriDiscovery is equipped with filters to help users find markets or vineyards in specific cities, or farm practice categories such as organic, sustainable or conventional. Users can also search for any of 500+ crops such as celery, artichokes and citrus.

“This helps to promote agriculture by connecting consumers to Central Coast farms, vineyards, wineries and farmers’ markets,” Koch said. “It’s a great experience for students to interact with the industry. They have learned a lot about crops, locations and our growers.”

Kim Lamb Gregory, a communication specialist at Cal State Channel Islands, is a veteran print and broadcast journalist.

06/24/2024

Santa Clara Valley bike path plan revving up again

How will it impact growers?
By Jeremy Childs

For years Ventura County transportation planners have imagined a continuous bike path along the Santa Paula Branch Line Railroad that would take pedalers from San Buenaventura State Beach to Santa Paula or Fillmore.

But as the project moves forward in fits and starts, it keeps running into the same challenge: many stretches of the rail line border or cut through commercial agricultural areas, raising concerns among growers trying to protect their livelihood. Issues of liability, insurance, agricultural chemical use, fencing and public safety remain unresolved, growers and their advocates say.

Up to 2,000 acres of ag land might have to be abandoned to create buffer zones that protect the public from pesticide use on lands close to proposed trails, said Maureen McGuire, chief executive of Farm Bureau Ventura County, in a December letter to the Ventura County Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee.

For those reasons, FBVC remains opposed to an expansion of the bike trails into commercial land. It has held the same position for 25 years, she wrote.
Proposed trail cuts through cropland
Growers opposed to the bike path development include Craig Underwood, owner of Underwood Family Farms, who said the rail line cuts through a small portion at the north end of their farm. Underwood said he was worried about security and breach of privacy by letting the public pass through a commercial farming operation.
“It's not as if they're riding or walking through a national park,” Underwood said.
Bike path efforts revived in 2023 with a $1.67 million state grant to study the impact of adding a continuous bike lane through the Santa Clara River Valley, said Martin Erickson, executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission. The study would include input from community stakeholders, including farms along the proposed path.
“There are significant concerns from the grower communities, and those issues would need to be mitigated and dealt with,” Erickson said in an interview.
The Ventura County Transportation Commission (VCTC) purchased the Santa Paula Branch Extension Rail Line in 1995. It initially leased the line to the Fillmore & Western Railway; when that lease elapsed it entered a 35-year contract with Sierra Northern to operate the rail line for freight, train car storage and rail bikes, which are pedaled along the train tracks. Erickson said the rail line lends itself to be developed into a bike path because it is already publicly owned and a designated right of way.
“The thing with bike lanes is you need the right of way,” Erickson said. “That can be complicated.”
However, that grant funding is now in limbo due to the state of California running a projected $38 billion deficit this fiscal year. While the state budget will not be finalized until summer, Erickson said VCTC has been informed the funds will be “paused” for at least a year. Once the study is completed, paying for the bike path will be the next hurdle.
“The larger question of how this large length of recreational trail would be funded is still an open question,” Erickson said.

Growers concerned
Ventura County Agriculture Commissioner Korinne Bell, who grew up on a ranch in the Santa Paula area, said another safety concern came up during a previous bike path study conducted between Fillmore and Piru, at the tail end of the Santa Paula branch extension.
The study found significant risk to the public due to the pesticides sprayed in agricultural areas. The situation is further complicated by last year’s quarantining of Santa Paula citrus groves after reports of the Asian citrus psyllid, a pest which spreads an incurable disease called “Huanglongbing” or citrus greening.
Some growers are ambivalent. Vanessa Robledo, who owns Prancers Farm just north of Santa Paula, said she sees pros and cons. The farm operates a daily fruit stand, which she said would benefit from the increased foot traffic brought by the bike path.
At the same time, she’s concerned about security as she’s seen vagrants wandering down the rail line that bisects her family’s farm and worries a public bike path could attract homeless camps. Fencing off certain areas might help, she suggested.
While installing fences seems like a simple compromise, Bell said that the earlier study found that option would pose a potential public safety risk because it could form a tunnel that traps individuals inside.
“A lot of the options that we would normally implement to protect the agriculture weren't viable options for this,” Bell said. “In general, we didn't feel it was the right idea to put a bike path through active production agriculture.”

Cycling enthusiasts support trail
Despite the misgivings of some farm owners and agriculture workers, the dream of the bike path remains strong with some elected officials, including state Assemblyman Steve Bennett (D-Ventura), a former Ventura County Supervisor. He believes a bike path would offer improved quality of life for residents, raise property values, increase safety for cyclists and bring tourists to the area.
“The public should not continue to be denied a class one bike lane, with all of the benefits that it brings to the greater good, so that a small number of individuals can have their way,” Bennett said.
Cycling enthusiasts are also big supporters. Trent Siggard, a lifelong Conejo Valley resident until recently, rode his bike 63 miles last year from the site of the St. Francis Dam in Santa Clarita through Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula to Ventura. He was able to use some existing segments of the trail but had to ride along Highway 126 or go off-road at times to complete the trip.
“This Santa Paula Bike Path is great!” Siggard wrote on X, formerly Twitter, last March. “If only it connected Piru, Fillmore, Santa Paula and eventually Ventura. Too spotty.”
Erickson hopes that the funding stall will give all sides a chance to come up with ways to make the bike path happen in a way that is acceptable to growers. He cites similar projects like the Ojai Valley bike path and the Napa Valley Vine Trail, with its famed vineyards, as examples of trails that can coexist with farmland.
“I've always maintained that VCTC is built on partnerships,” Erickson said. “If this is to advance further, we want to do it in a way that those concerns can be mitigated.”

Jeremy Childs is a freelance journalist who has written for the Ventura County Star, the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone online.

06/24/2024

Bad news bugs

Associates Insectary ending 95-year run
By Wendy Woods

A Santa Paula cooperative that has been offering beneficial insects to growers for 95 years is winding down operations and set to shutter. The main reason: a challenging citrus industry.
Associates Insectary, which once reared some 2 million insects a day to help growers control harmful pests, has stopped offering field services but will continue selling insects likely through Labor Day.

In the last couple of years, lemon prices have taken a nosedive and they’re not expected to rebound any time soon. With many growers losing or converting citrus land, the demand for beneficial insects and spray services has plummeted.
“Many of these growers of second-, third-generation are being forced to sell land. Costs are so high they can’t justifiably continue to farm,” said Brett Chandler, general manager of Associates Insectary. “We’re a reflection of the citrus industry on the coast here.”

At Petty Ranch, land that used to grow commercial lemons has been converted to avocados and many Associates Insectary members have gone a similar route. Chris Sayer of Petty Ranch said lemon prices were high for about a decade but now there’s way too many lemons going to market.
Sayer, who’s also board president of Associates Insectary, said the decision to close the co-op was a “tough pill to swallow.” The number of employees is down to a dozen from 32.

“I remind myself that there’s not many organizations that have managed to have a 95-year run,” said Sayer, whose ranch has been part of the co-op since the 1930s. “We had a very good long run of accomplishing what our growers asked us to do. We continued to do it right up ‘till the end.”

Agricultural co-ops were once quite common. It was a way for growers to pool resources and fund an operation that would normally have huge overhead costs when managed individually.
Co-op filled a need

In 1928, a group of packing houses banded together to create the insectary. Growers were struggling with pests, particularly red scale, an insect that can do a lot of damage to citrus. Beneficial insects–like predatory mites and a beetle known as the mealybug destroyer–are the pests’ natural enemies.

About a decade after formation, the insectary started offering spray services to attack other pests that couldn’t be controlled by insects. Long before “integrated pest management” was popularized, the co-op was mixing natural and artificial methods to control pests.
Billed as the oldest insectary in the country, Associates Insectary reared, sold and shipped anywhere from 450 million to 800 million insects a year. Operations started winding down early this year, but the insectary is still rearing about 1 million insects a day.

The Cryptolaemus beetle, a smaller cousin to the lady bug, is the most commonly reared insect at the co-op. The general purpose predator is effective at hunting down mealybugs and red scale. Other beneficial bugs include the californicus mite, which eat the mites that damage avocado crops, and predatory wasps, which lay eggs inside scale insects that later hatch and eat the harmful insects.

An end to the insect operation will be bad news not just for the employees and co-op members but for many others in the industry. Rincon-Vitova Insectaries is a family-owned business that has operated for 70 years and buys from neighboring Associates.
It uses the co-op's predatory wasps to deal with scale insects that latch onto squash; the wasps have a taste for the scaley bugs. Gabe Rude, sales manager for Rincon-Vitova, said there’s interest in using bugs instead of pesticides but he, too, has noticed customers struggling with high costs.
“This year there’s certainly that trend of tightening the belt,” he said. “I try to be hopeful but I think the big picture is we’re doomed.”

It’s unclear what exactly the future holds.

Sayer believes there’s still an interest in this kind of pest management and existing insect providers will still be available once Associates closes. Those behind the co-op are having discussions with different groups who might be interested in acquiring the operation or intellectual property that has developed over many decades.
“It’s certainly sad to see the institution disappear,” Sayer said. “We want to make sure the knowledge base and techniques can live on as part of Ventura County.”

Wendy Woods covered the Oxnard Plain for the Ventura County Star.

03/11/2024

Smoke signals

Wildfires leave Central Coast growers grappling with smoke exposed wine grapes
By Jodi Helmer

In 2019, as wildfires burned up acreage on the Central Coast, Nicholas Miller was fielding calls from wineries who wanted Bien Nacido Vineyard to harvest their vines right away.
Their concern wasn’t destruction of the Santa Maria vineyards, it was the smoke.
“We sell most of our grapes to third-party wineries,” explains Miller. “There was quite a bit of panic.”
Smoke from wildfires contains compounds that can bind to the skin of the grapes. Factors ranging from wind speed to grape varietals influence whether smoke exposure imparts an undesirable smoky, burnt or ashy flavor in the grapes. If exposures are mild, grapes can still be used to produce wine, but more severe exposure, called smoke taint, ruins the crop.
“If a winemaker has to skip a vintage, that’s a definite challenge,” says Alisa Jacobson, owner/winemaker at Turning Tide Wines in Santa Ynez and chair of the research committee for the West Coast Smoke Exposure Task Force.
Climate change has made California wildfires more frequent and intense, increasing the risk for growers. In 2020, $601 million worth of California wine grapes were unharvested due to smoke exposure. While recent wet weather has diminished the risk a return to drier and hotter seasons is inevitable, climate experts say.
The West Coast Smoke Exposure Task Force, which includes winemakers and researchers from universities in California, Oregon and Washington, was formed in 2019 to research the effect of wildfire smoke exposure on wine grapes and wine, and to provide tools to manage or prevent damage from wildfire smoke.
The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Initiative provided the task force with a $7.65 million grant to fund their research. One of the primary areas of research is agreeing on a definition of smoke exposure.
“One of the main issues that we've had in the past is that the industry is not all on the same page about…what the compounds are [that cause smoke exposure] and above certain thresholds, it’s definitely tainted,” Jacobson says. “Smoke is so complex and there are so many compounds and our researchers are still working on what those markers are and then the industry has to decide what markers they want to use.”
To complicate matters, some varietals absorb more smoke compounds than others and it’s impossible to tell whether grapes have been affected while they are still in the vineyard; it forces winemakers to do micro-fermentations to assess the impact.
Clearing the smoke
When smoke affects the flavor, growers have limited options—both before and after exposure. It’s possible that spraying grapes with a protective coating could prevent smoke compounds from seeping into the skins but the idea is still in development. For now, blending appears to be the best bet but it remains problematic, according to Miller.
“It works for some but most wineries, especially smaller wineries, don't have the ability to blend it away,” he adds.
Gregg Hibbits, chairman of the California Association of Wine Growers, thinks blending is a good concept but believes more can be done. Currently, crop insurance is a primary tool to help growers recoup grapes lost to smoke exposure but it’s difficult to make claims. The federal crop insurance program requires laboratory testing that shows elevated levels of two compounds, guaiacol and 4-methyguaiacol, but has no established benchmarks for determining the validity of a smoke exposure claim.
“Crop insurance is federally subsidized and that makes it much more cost effective for growers. The downside is that it's truly catastrophic insurance,” Hibbits says. “It’ll protect you from financial ruin, but it won’t [fully cover the losses].”
In 2023, Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) introduced The Smoke Exposure Crop Insurance Act to address the nascent problem. The bipartisan legislation, which is expected to take effect in 2025, will allow growers in high-risk areas to purchase expanded coverage for losses related to smoke exposure.
Instead of relying solely on lab testing “they decided to look at it from a different perspective and say if your vineyard is covered in smoke for a certain number of days, we will pay you,” Jacobson said.
Growers recognize the problem of smoke exposure and are eager for solutions.
“We can’t prevent the fires from happening, so we need to do further [research and development] to understand how can we either isolate the smoky flavor or help at the wine level,” says Miller. “The best solution hasn’t been discovered yet.”

Jodi Helmer is a North Carolina-based farmer and freelancer who writes about agriculture.

03/11/2024

Limoneira up for sale

Pioneering company will consider a host of proposals
By Frank Nelson

December’s announcement that Limoneira was exploring ownership changes for the 131-year-old citrus powerhouse has already attracted “significant interest” according to Harold Edwards, chairman and CEO of the Santa Paula-based agribusiness.
Its bid to return as a privately-held company through a sale, merger or buyout has drawn interest from large pension funds, insurance funds and investment funds operated by foreign states, Edwards said. There is also interest in Limoneira’s water rights and its move toward real estate development, a relatively new endeavor for the land-rich company.
“There’s no question that the real estate development will be one of the most important parts of the business going forward,” Edwards said.
Given the complexities of the options and the board’s commitment to careful deliberations, it could be six to 12 months before any decisions are made, he said. Word that Limoneira is courting suitors sparked apprehension within the Santa Paula community where it has been headquartered since its founding in 1893.
Henry Dominguez spent part of his youth living on Limoneira property and working briefly for the company while his father managed the former orange packing plant in Santa Paula. Today he farms 75 acres of avocados and about 25 more of lemons. He’s been growing for Limoneira since 2017 and admits he’s a little nervous about how things might work out.
“From a personal standpoint and dealing with them professionally as a grower, I’m apprehensive about any significant change…and hope they will continue to operate at the same level of professionalism and corporate responsibility,” Dominguez said.
Wall Street pressures
The company’s decision to seek restructuring, and possibly to go private, was sparked by the board’s concern that its market value on the Nasdaq–about $322 million– did not fully reflect the business’ underlying assets and potential future earnings. Publicly-traded companies typically seek steady growth while farming businesses tend to be more cyclical and unpredictable, especially in times of increasingly extreme weather.
Limoneira is a major U.S. grower, packer and distributor of lemons and avocados, with operations in California, Arizona, Chile and Argentina.
The company employs about 350 people, some 300 of them in Ventura County. In recent years it has also turned residential property development into a major revenue stream. Harvest at Limoneira, springing up across more than 500 acres of former lemon and avocado farmland near Santa Paula, is slated for 2,000 homes. So far 670 have been sold, another 554 are being marketed and down the track more land is being eyed for housing, Edwards said.
In addition, Limoneira has dipped a toe into the winery industry with a vineyard in Paso Robles, and holds valuable water resources and rights.
“Water is probably the most valuable asset that the company possesses,” Edwards said.
The company was originally owned by just eight farming families but by 2010–seven generations later–the number of shareholders had ballooned past 500. Under Securities and Exchange Commission rules, that meant the company had no choice but to go public and begin shouldering all the expense associated with reporting and regulatory demands.
“As a publicly-traded company we are just way too small to continue to bear the enormous cost of corporate compliance,” Edwards said. “We spend somewhere between $3 million and $5 million per year being publicly traded.”
Edwards says the company values its history and role in the community, and believes Limoneira will continue to play a leading role in Santa Paula for years to come.
“The heart and soul of the company is Ventura County and any buyer would be foolish to think about moving,” he said. “Plus, you can’t move 4,000 acres,” he added, referring to the area farmed by Limoneira in Ventura County, a sizeable chunk of the company’s total 11,200 acres.
Board member and former company executive, Al Guilin, does not see the changes underway as a seismic shift but rather a prudent response to current industry conditions. Guilin, who worked at the company from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s, said Limoneira has continually reevaluated crop mix, holdings and other strategic issues, a sound business approach that has served it well over the years.
Asset-lighter model
As part of a broader strategic rebalancing, Edwards said the company is easing slightly away from the role of grower to concentrate more on providing services such as farm management, packing, distribution and marketing. It is shedding under-performing or non-essential assets: last year, for example, the company sold about 3,000 acres of lemons in the San Joaquin Valley, using the roughly $100 million proceeds to pay down debt. And it will continue converting acreage from lemons to avocados.
Its heavy reliance on lemons almost undid Limoneira during the Covid-19 pandemic when bars and restaurants—making up 70% of consumed lemons—shut down. “Demand crashed,” he said. “It really put the company in a bad spot as we wrestled basically for survival.”
The recent discovery near Santa Paula of Huanglongbing (HLB), a bacterial disease which kills citrus trees, has served to underline the wisdom of expanding avocado production. Even so, Edwards says the company remains confident it can continue to farm its way through the difficult and costly threat posed by HLB.

Frank Nelson has long covered business on the Central Coast. He divides his time between New Zealand and Ventura County.

A Pioneering Ag Business

1893
Limoneira founded when Nathan W. Blanchard and Wallace Hardison purchased 413 acres of land in Santa Paula. The company’s primary crops were lemons, Valencia oranges and walnuts.

1901
C.C. Teague was named general manager, hiring university scholars to develop new growing techniques. Teague convinced other growers to band together to form the California Fruit Growers Exchange, later known as Sunkist. Teague was Sunkist’s longtime president and founded other brands including Diamond Walnut.

1944
First avocados planted on the ranch.

1985-1997
Period of expansion as Limoneira merges with other citrus growers.

2008
Limoneira receives 83% Santa Paula voter approval to proceed with its master-planned community, Harvest at Limoneira.

2010
Limoneira listed on the NASDAQ global market, leaves Sunkist co-op.

2013-2019
Limoneira expands direct marketing and selling with acreage in Chile and Argentina.

2017
Company breaks ground on first phase of Harvest at Limoneira.

2023
Limoneira board chair Scott Slater announces potential sale, merger, acquisition or buyout. Company leaders say they remain committed to Santa Paula.

03/11/2024

Ag roots

CSUCI professor shines light on forgotten labor force behind California’s wine industry
By Colleen Cason

The history of the California wine industry largely was written in the last quarter of the 20th century by Europeans and their descendants. Right?
It’s far more complicated, says Julia Ornelas-Higdon, a Cal State Channel Islands associate professor whose “The Grapes of Conquest: Race, Labor and the Industrialization of California Wine, 1769 – 1920” was published in November by the University of Nebraska Press.
Ornelas-Higdon calls the Central Coast’s Chumash tribes and other natives California’s first migrant farmworkers.
“Indian laborers planted vineyards, brought in the harvest and crushed the grapes,’’ she said. “In doing so, mission Indians literally sowed the seeds of viticulture and wine in California.”
Ornelas-Higdon, 40, grew up in Solano County hearing tales of what her grandfather and great uncles experienced as Mexican braceros working in the United States. Their struggles with arduous working conditions and long absences from family so captivated her she decided to study 20th century agricultural labor.
“But I fell in love with the history of wine,” she said, and soon found her research stretching back a century earlier than she expected.
Unheralded laborers
Her book was born over a bottle of wine at the family table when her mother, Patricia, happened to mention Chinese immigrants built the underground cellars for the wineries. She had never heard of their role before.
Her research revealed California’s wine industry relied heavily on a succession of unheralded laborers, starting with local Native Americans brought in to help build the state’s missions and tend its fields. In later years they were joined by tribes from Arizona and northern Mexico, Asian workers and, once California became a U.S. state in 1850, European settlers, particularly German.
Evidence suggests the padres might have failed at growing grapes without native labor. Mission records reveal Padre Junipero Serra routinely complained to his superiors of a lack of sacramental wine and questioned how the Franciscans could convert the native population without the evangelization tool of Holy Communion.
Ornelas-Higdon’s research shows it took the padres more than 10 years to establish vineyards. By 1808 Santa Barbara and San Buenaventura missions had grapevines but they were not particularly productive, she said. Among the reasons for this is the padres hewed to an outdated agricultural manual from Spain.
Unlike the terraced plantings we now know, the padres’ text eschewed trellising the grapes and touted growing them as bushes. Thus, the indigenous workers were forced into head-pruning, a form of stoop labor.
Despite tending the fruit at every stage, including stomping the grapes, Native Americans were prohibited from drinking the work of their hands except at Mass, a way to relegate them to second-class citizenship, Ornelas-Higdon said.
From the early days of wine-grape cultivation until today there has been no lack of ballyhoo over the superiority of California wines. As early as 1831, Gov. Manuel Victoria argued viniculture would fuel the economic engine of California, then in the hands of the Mexican government.
Two years later, the missions were secularized with the stated intention of returning the land to the native peoples. That never happened, Ornelas-Higdon writes. Instead vast land grants were made to Spanish and Mexican elites who relied on inexpensive native labor to build their wealth. They mostly traded in cattle but landholders such as Tomas Yorba and Jose Sepulveda produced wine at their ranchos.
After the U.S. took California, many of those lands fell into the hands of European immigrants and early American settlers, such as Frenchman Jean Louis Vignes and American William Heath Davis, whose holdings established Los Angeles as a wine-making center in the 19th century. These growers, too, relied on native labor. As the indigenous population declined, they brought in Yaqui Indians from Arizona and northern Mexico.
Eventually vintners like Leland Stanford hired Chinese laborers over the xenophobic protests of neighboring ranchers.
Prohibited by law from owning land, the Chinese showed the immigrant knack of adapting their skillset to new endeavors. Chinese workers arrived in California in large numbers to mine the goldfields. There they learned how to use explosives. When the Gold Rush went bust, they adapted their talents to building railroads. When that work dried up, they moved into the wineries in the 1860s, applying their knowledge to blast wine caves.
Ornelas-Higdon says she’s often asked who are the heroes and villains of this story. She deflects, explaining that as an historian she works with “questions, not judgments.”
But she emphasizes vineyard workers are skilled laborers and deserve respect for that.
"Even today the harvest is grueling. Why not celebrate and pay attention to their work?”

Colleen Cason is editor emeritus of Central Coast Farm & Ranch and a Conejo-Valley based freelance writer.

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