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Agricultural land is under pressure to yield to development in Ventura County's fertile Oxnard Plain, where the same weather conditions that allow year-round food production are prized for human habitation as well. Its close proximity to the Los Angeles sprawl is inviting to those who must work in LA but prefer and can afford to live in a more bucolic setting.
Growth and land use are perpetual topics of contention in many parts of California and the United States and are as well in Ventura County and its cities. Growth—or no-growth—plans often center around the symbolic year 2000 but rightly should extend midway into the next century and beyond. Land, once it has been paved with concrete and asphalt, is unlikely ever to revert to farming.
Since such change is essentially permanent it requires a global view and realistic analysis of what the effect will be, not only over time, but from a regional watershed standpoint before development is embraced. This view should ignore the artificial political boundaries of cities, counties and states and consider wider concerns.

Stepping Back
Environmental Impact Statements (EIRs) now focus on narrowly local concerns. Future environmental studies must consider broader impacts over extended periods, particularly, the effects on watersheds and how mitigation of increased runoff from developed areas may be obtained through preservation and wise use of farmlands.
A developer gazing at a swath of level farmland cannot help but imagine a mall or a condominium complex rising where now there are only broccoli and beans. A city council imagines the tax revenue from a new commercial center and the homes needed for the population necessary to staff the offices, industries and stores.
A pragmatist, on the other hand, sees loss of farmland and a net revenue loss when condos replace broccoli. Cities with the greatest development tend also to have the greatest budget problems because agricultural production needs insignificant city- or county-supported infrastructure. Police and fire protection, streets, lighting, sewer and maintenance for farmland are minimal or nonexistent.
Tax on agriculture represents a net revenue gain compared to other possible land uses. Industrial and commercially developed lands are typically a break-even revenue source and residential developments represent a net revenue loss—except for the developer.
A potentially greater loss than tax revenue is the food the land produces. Perhaps the need to preserve agricultural land is not appreciated when we enjoy Moroccan oranges, South American vegetables, Mexican avocados and artichokes; imports made possible by low production and transportation costs.
By some projections, in as little as 30 or 40 years cheap foreign produce will be little more than a memory. As the global economy forces greater equity among workers around the world wages will undoubtedly rise. Underdeveloped countries, for which agriculture was a mostly low-tech entree into international trade, will modernize, increasing demand for fuel to power industry and for personal uses.
New demand for fossil fuels will inevitably drive up the cost of shipping and foreign food will become economically unattractive in the U.S. Agricultural land in America will have increased value for crop production and development on farmland will be seen as infeasible, irresponsible, impractical and perhaps even un-American. The rush to develop prime farm land, such as the Oxnard Plain, will prove to be unwise in the extreme.

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