While global avocado production continues to rise, here in San Diego County — long one of the largest producers of avocados in the world— fewer and fewer are being grown.
Data from the University of California show total acreage of avocado trees in the county dropped from roughly 26,000 acres in 2008 to about 13,000 acres by last year. The report lists a variety of reasons why, including the spread of urban development.
Jennifer and Kurt Bantle are among those still growing avocados in the North County. Jennifer said she and her husband thought their Bantle Farm in Fallbrook would be a good investment when they started farming 14 years ago.
“But we learned the trees were too tall. We had to stump the trees and start all over again, which meant waiting seven years for a full crop,” she said.
Bantle said that’s when they realized Kurt would have to keep his job as a wireless engineer to afford farming.
And growing time was not the only challenge. Avocado trees need a lot of water to stay healthy. An average tree needs roughly 18 gallons of water per day in the fall and winter, and up to about 34 gallons per day in the spring and summer.
And water has been getting more expensive for years. In 2019, the Bantles paid $4.42 per 1,000 gallons to the the Fallbrook Public Utility District. This year, the FPUD's agricultural water rate is $5.83 per 1,000 gallons.
“I’ve already had to cut down 180 trees just recently because I can’t afford the water anymore,” Bantle said.
“It’s really depressing. So I get really emotional about this because I’m so involved with my farm. I am the one doing a lot of the work. I’m the one pruning the trees, I’m the one throwing the wood and I’m a two-time cancer survivor and I have a lot of years, my good years, that have been put into this,” Bantle said, fighting back tears.
And there’s the problem of labor— hiring enough people to pick the fruit. Some farms qualify for the H2A visa program that allows non-American citizens to work here legally.
“If we wouldn’t have these H2A guys, this grove would not be picked by now,” said Serafin Michel, farm manager at ACA Groves in Valley Center. He’s worked there since he was a teenager — more than 50 years now.
He said due to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, it’s now more difficult than ever to hire workers.
“A lot of my neighbors are … they’re dropping the fruit because there ain’t no local workers,” Michel said. “Most of the big ranches around this area is gone because of the water prices is killing us, the labor is killing us, the avocados from Mexico and Peru and all these other places, they’re shipping avocados to the United States, they drop our price down. We have no chance to survive, no chance, and now with the labor, it’s even worse.”
ACA Groves hires pickers through the H2A visa program, but qualifying for it isn’t easy. It involves a lot of factors and qualifications that some farms can’t or won’t meet.
The Bantle Farm is not in the H2A program, and Jennifer Bantle said simply hiring workers these days is getting tougher.
“It’s getting frightening,” she said. “It’s scary because we’re having to be coached on what to do if immigration comes to your farm and, what do you say to them? And I’m like really? Is this really happening?”
For the Bantles, it’s all getting to be too much. They’ve entered into a county program called PACE: the Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement. It pays small farmers to permanently designate their property for agricultural use only, both to preserve farmland and to reduce greenhouse gases.
The county has a goal of getting 443 acres set aside every year. So far, it has preserved more than 3,000 acres.
“So, I’ll be allowed to build a house and an ADU and a farm or a winery, but I can’t develop it. So that’s going to limit my resale value,” Bantle said.
She has a love-hate relationship with farming.
“I love my trees. I talk to each and every one of them. I hugged them goodbye when I had to cut them down. That was so hard,” she said. “But what are you gonna do? You gotta pay the bills.”
