As high rise condominiums and sprawling subdivisions consume the
Santa Clara Valley, what once was a valley of orchards and row
crops is fast falling victim to the region’s inevitable
urbanization.
A s high rise condominiums and sprawling subdivisions consume the Santa Clara Valley, what once was a valley of orchards and row crops is fast falling victim to the region’s inevitable urbanization.
“This farm will be houses sooner or later,” said Andy Mariani, 63, a renowned grower of stone fruits in Morgan Hill. His orchard still flourishes despite the growing forces of a market that doesn’t value small business and a valley floor that’s filling with housing developments. “In the meantime, we’re just trying to survive and we do that by cooperating with our neighbors.”
To accommodate his neighbors – Live Oak High School directly to the south and housing developments to the north and east – Mariani quickly learned that spraying, rather than cranking up his tractor, is better suited for after dark. Using a helicopter to spray when the spring rains render the fields too soggy for a ground sprayer is also out of the question.
“If we crank up our tractors at 6 a.m., that’s a problem. Dust is a problem,” Mariani said. “But I don’t blame (the neighbors). People want peace and quiet. They want to sleep in.”
That’s where the county’s agricultural rights ordinance comes in. Like most states and counties, Santa Clara County protects growers’ and ranchers’ “right to farm,” free from the fear that irked neighbors might sue. Rural property owners are made aware at the time they purchase their land that “you may be subject to inconveniences or discomforts … including but not limited to noise, odors, fumes, dust, the operation of machinery of any kind during any 24-hour period (including aircraft), the storage and disposal of manure, and the application by spraying or otherwise of chemical fertilizers, soil amendments, herbicides and pesticides,” according to the ordinance.
But even though many farmers in South County are justified in taking the “we were here first” stance, that attitude won’t go far, Mariani said.
“We realize that we’re trying to be an agriculture enterprise in an area transitioning toward urban,” said Mariani, whose orchard sits on a plot of land near Cochrane Road that’s been a family farm for more than 50 years. “We have to go with the flow.”
Time is also on George Davis’ side. Like Mariani’s orchard, Davis Poultry Farm near Masten Avenue in north Gilroy has been around for 50 years. Over the years, one of the biggest adjustments he’s made surrounds the disposal of chicken droppings. Years ago, Davis, 67, would spread the droppings out in the field to dry in the sun and later sell as fertilizer. But when neighbors became concerned that the waste would wash into storm drains when the rains came, Davis started hiring someone to haul the droppings away.
“It used to really help with money a great deal,” Davis said. “But we try to keep the neighbors happy.”
Although the sounds and smells associated with life on the farm may take some locals back to a simpler time, newcomers to the area might wrinkle their noses at the pungent odors that come with garlic, onion or mushroom farming. The benefits, however, of local farming far outweigh the sacrifices neighbors have to make, said Emily Bettencourt, food safety coordinator with Del Fresh Produce in Morgan Hill.
“Unfortunately, agriculture can be a little smelly and a little noisy,” Bettencourt said. “But the main thing about Gilroy and Morgan Hill is that urban people have access to local fruits and vegetables that are of such a high quality. Fresh produce is a five-minute drive away for most.”
To downplay the distinct smell that comes with mushroom farming, Del Fresh moved its composting off site to San Benito County, Bettencourt said.
“We all want to be a good neighbor,” said Tim Chiala, director of fresh market sales and procurement at his father’s company, George Chiala Farms in Morgan Hill.
With garlic and peppers as two of Chiala Farms’ most prominent crops, the staff is used to complaints about smell, Tim Chiala said. Although he can’t make fresh vegetables any less aromatic, the farm has taken strides to avoid complaints about spraying by moving that activity to about 2 a.m., when the wind has calmed and most people are asleep, Tim Chiala said.
Fifty years ago, wind was less of a problem, remembered Richard Barberi, 64, who leases his plot of farm land at the corner of Monterey Road and West Luchessa Avenue near the Gilroy Sports Park.
“There used to be hardly any wind at all,” Barberi said. “There were more trees to break the wind but when the trees started coming down, the wind picked up. And wind makes dust.”
Dust and blowing pesticides make unhappy neighbors, Barberi said, adding that a surprising amount of people don’t research their new neighborhoods well enough before moving in.
When Barberi’s ancestors came over from Italy and Portugal in the early 1900s and settled in Gilroy to farm prunes and pears, their land sprawled for about 140 acres from Monterey and Luchessa to where the Garlic Farm truck stop now stands. The construction of the highway, the levee and various other developments shrank their land to its current size of about 24 acres, Barberi said.
Now a retired telecommunications manager, Barberi is looking to sell off the plot as soon as possible for the simple fact that he’s not making any money. The $8,000 he makes in rent barely puts a dent in the $27,000 he pays annually in taxes, he said.
After living in an era when the school calendar revolved around the prune harvest, Barberi mulled over a future where agriculture could be erased by urbanization.
“People who live in town love their farmers markets and that’s great,” he said. “But that’s all gone in a second if farming’s not allowed to happen in this valley.”
