Farm Talk Podcast: Interview with President of Sierra Pacific Farms, Doug O’Hara

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Paul Ward: Hi Everyone. Paul Ward here and welcome to another edition of Farm Talk. I’m so excited today, we have Doug O’Hara with Sierra Pacific. Doug, welcome to the show. 

Doug O’Hara: Thank you. 

Paul Ward: So, Doug, what is Sierra Pacific?

Doug O’Hara: Sierra Pacific is a grove management company. We primarily specialize in avocado and citrus. We own, lease and manage ranches for individuals that buy a piece of property and just don’t know how to farm or don’t want to farm or want to learn how to farm.

Paul Ward: You were formally known as Somis Pacific, correct?

Doug O’Hara: Correct, Somis Pacific started about 40 years ago owned by Sam McIntyre. Sam McIntyre retired about 15 years ago and his son who had a grove management company called “Sierra Pacific” in Riverside County bought Sam’s company, and merged as one. So now we’re formally known as Sierra Pacific Farms,

Paul Ward: And you’re headquartered here in Moorpark, California? Right outside of the city limits?

Doug O’Hara: Right outside the city limits outside in the country.

Paul Ward: Okay. And how many acres do you guys manage?

Doug O’Hara: We manage around 2,500 acres of avocados and lemons.

Paul Ward: Any other crops or primarily avocados and lemons?

Doug O’Hara: Avocados and lemons. We’ve done some mandarins. We used to do some grapes in Malibu but we decided to stay a little bit local. So we decided to stick with avocados and lemons. Not that we’re opposed to doing anything, it’s just primarily that’s kind of what we do.

Paul Ward: I’m new to farming and let’s say I want to buy an orchard. I want to become an avocado farmer. How would you guys step in? What would your role be?

Doug O’Hara: I would come out and meet with you, walk the Grove, look at it and give you an estimate of what I think a productionalized cost to farm would be and answer any questions. I’ve been in the business almost 30 years now. So if you’re a starting farmer or a more advanced farmer, I can help you with any questions. I can give you budgets, do long-term projections of profit and income or profit and loss and basically farming costs.

Paul Ward: If I saw even a piece of dirt that I liked, could that potentially be farmed?

Doug O’Hara: Absolutely. Absolutely. I know this area pretty well. So any piece of property around here, I can get any kind of background on it and give you a cost; we do total developments. We do redevelopments. We take over farms in perfect condition. So anything from a bare piece of land to the most gorgeous property in Ventura county, we can help you with.

Paul Ward: Okay, how’d you get into this?

Doug O’Hara: I went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. It’s a funny story. When I first started in Cal Poly San Luis, I was actually a computer science major. I couldn’t get into computer science, so they allowed me to get into soil science. So I figured, “Well, I’ll go to soil science and then in a year or two, I’ll sneak out of soil science and go to computer science.” Didn’t work out too well. So the first soil science class I took was with a very nice professor and basically I was hooked after that and I decided to stick with that culture. After I graduated, I did an internship with a local company called Fruit Growers Lab for a while. Also another lab down in San Diego County and just enjoyed it. So that was thirty years ago. 

Paul Ward: Wow! What size orchards do you manage?

Doug O’Hara: I have many different sizes. I have a Grove as low as one acre up to a thousand acres. My largest Grove was a thousand acres in Somis. 

Paul Ward: Oh wow. 

Doug O’Hara: My smallest Grove is probably one acre in Santa Rosa Valley. The question I always get from everybody, from the small growers especially, is, “Do you treat, I only want one acre and that guy is 20 acres and I know they’re more important…” Now everybody is important to me, one acre, two acres, five acres, a thousand acres. We all treat you the same. Everybody has different needs. Everybody has different wants, and everyone wants to spend different amounts of money and they have different budgets. But as a farm, all farms are treated the same. 

Paul Ward: How do you take care of one acre? I’m just curious. That’s interesting.

Doug O’Hara: Same as I treat 1000 acres

Paul Ward: The guy goes there and he goes there and turns on the water…

Doug O’Hara: One guy fertilizes, prunes, does the weeds (and so on.) Obviously with a thousand acres, it takes a couple more guys than one. So yeah, a thousand acres is pretty much a full-time job for a crew. We have an irrigator that will go to the small groves. It just travels all day long and does all the work. For larger groves, we just have a whole crew go in and do everything. But as far as the way I farm, it’s exactly the same. It’s if I put a pound of fertilizer on the one acre rrove, I’m putting a pound of fertilizer on a thousand acre grove. So you’re treated the same, just on a smaller scale.

Paul Ward: Gotcha. What if an orchard is a sad orchard? I mean, did you kind of see it and it’s just kind of in disrepair, how would you handle that?

Doug O’Hara: We have to look at and evaluate; basically the cost benefit. Is it a benefit to add money to it, to revamp it, or is it just worth it to take it all down and start over? That’s what I would do. I would look through it and evaluate it to see what’s the best option. We give you all the options. If you want to revamp something, because you don’t want to tear out a grove, we can do that. It would just have to be on a base by base/ property by property basis.

Paul Ward: Is there a way to project income on these properties? I know you, if you buy a strip center or grocery store, you know the projected rents, but is there a way to predict your projected income on farming?

Doug O’Hara: The only thing we can do is we can go on past history. The avocado market-  it fluctuates quite a bit. It’s not just a fruit from the United States anymore. There’s a lot of foreign influences from other countries where fruit comes in and it really (makes the) price fluctuate. So all I can do is go by history and by my own experience. Same with lemons; lemons are a hard one to really nail down. So we just use the average over the years and think of the future. Anything can happen in farming, right? But we try to do the best we can and be conservative with our numbers. 

Paul Ward: Now, I’ve always thought or heard that avocados were kind of the high risk, high reward and lemons were kind of like the safe stock, is that true?

Doug O’Hara: Somewhat true. Avocados produce one crop a year. So if you have a heat, a wind event, a freeze event, and you lose your crop, or most of your crop, you have nothing for the year and you still have to pay to support the trees; fertilizer, wate, all the care. Lemons have more (like) three to four crops per year. So if you have a freeze event, a wind event, a problem, you may lose one or two crops, but you still have a couple of crops. If you have a major frost event, lemon trees will recover faster. Avocado trees, if you have a major frost event, it may be two, three years before they recover. So, but as you said, avocados, the return on them can be very high. Lemons are more of a stable return. Avocados are obviously more of a, I would say an “exotic fruit,” where lemons, you know, people put them in their drinks and lemonade and things like that.

Paul Ward: I heard that lemons got hit really hard by COVID because restaurants had shut down, but now they’re making a comeback. 

Doug O’Hara: Right once the restaurants shut down, it really hit them. But the good thing was everybody wanted vitamin C and lemons have vitamin C. So in the store, the single lemons- obviously the restaurant stops shut down. So nothing in the restaurants, but of course, people in the store didn’t really want people touching lemens. So what we did is they started bagging lemons, which they’ve done all the time, but they really amped up the bags. So it’s a bag full of lemons. So people would take it. They don’t have to touch the lemon and it’s good. It’s a good vitamin. So it started out very, very, very bad, but by the end of the year, when everybody started wanting to eat healthier and get the vitamins, the lemon markets popped up. Now with COVID semi over it is starting to get better. It’s not back to where it was. But not everything’s open, not all states are open, but it’s getting better. Avocados never missed a beat. Well, I would say before COVID they were very high. We were very good. Then once COVID hit, they dropped, but they leveled off. They didn’t really drop off because people like avocados, healthy fat, vitamins, minerals, all that stuff. So, it affected it, obviously for the food service, but more people in the store, more people buying avocados..

Paul Ward: Right and how do we stay locally? How do we stay competitive with Mexico and Peru and Chile growing so much?

Doug O’Hara: Yeah, it’s, it’s tough. Um, you know, obviously their costs are quite a bit less in Mexico. A majority of Mexico doesn’t even water. They use natural rainfall for water. So obviously here in Ventura county, water’s an issue. If you have a well, a well is a much cheaper water, If you have district water from the city, it’s much more expensive. I think the best way is to treat the Grove the way you need to treat it. You just water- because it’s expensive, you don’t stop watering. You have to give the tree what it needs. The water needs, the fertilizer needs the care it needs. It may hurt sometimes if you don’t have a crop, but in the end, you’ll have a healthier Grove that produces so you have to keep your production up.

Paul Ward: If I want to buy an orchard and I know nothing in the beginning but over time I learn a little bit. Is there a way that a new orchard owner could get more involved at some point?

Doug O’Hara: Absolutely. I always say to the owners, “It’s your grove, you can be as involved as you want, or you can just walk away, let me do everything.” I’ve got growers that I talk to once a year, I’ve got growers that I talk to once a week. So we are more than happy to teach you and help you learn. There’s so many ways to get involved. You can get on the California Avocado Commission website. They have a lot of information for new growers there. There is the Ventura County Farm Bureau. They have tons of information and they can use me as an information source. So yes. I can do everything from start to finish, but as much as you want to be involved is great for me.

Paul Ward: Okay. And then some folks just want no risk at all. I mean, is there a way that you might just take over completely and kind of have a co-op agreement with the owner?

Doug O’Hara: We do something called “a lease.” So basically we take on all expenses and we farm everything. And then at the end of the year, we’ll split the profit with them. That’s for a grower that wants to own the property but doesn’t want to have the monthly expense. Doesn’t want to have to worry about the risk and worry about what they’re going to make and what they’re going to spend. So yes, we’ll take care of all the expenses and we’ll either pay a monthly fee or we’ll do it at the end, we’ll just split the profits.

Paul Ward: Okay. So they’ll live out in the country and enjoy the lifestyle, but not have to worry about the risks of being a farmer.

Doug O’Hara: Exactly and not have to worry about the risk of being a farmer 

Paul Ward: Who does the harvesting?

Doug O’Hara: I contract the harvesting out. There’s many local companies out here that do the harvesting. So we hire them out and then they harvest and they’re paid through your proceeds. So you don’t have to pay them directly. I handle that all myself and it’s all fully insured and they’re very, very good workers around here. A lot of harvesting companies around here.

Paul Ward: Sustainable farming. I know it’s a kind of a term that gets thrown around how, how is Sierra Pacific involved in that?

Doug O’Hara: Sustainable farming is becoming a very popular way of farming. We have some groves, we do some organic groves ee do. Obviously we all know that the cost to be sustainable, organic is much higher but it’s much safer for the environment. The materials that we use, obviously have to be all certified organic and are a little more expensive, but I always tell people, “If you want to do it for the environment, if you want to do it because you feel you want a safer environment, safer for the soil, safer for the water. Great. But if you’re doing it for money, that’s not the way you want to do it.”

Paul Ward: Who’s on your team. I know it’s not you. And how many people are out there working?

Doug O’Hara: Well, I have me, I’m the president of the company. I have Hayden McIntyre, who’s the owner’s son, Allisen Carmichael, who works with the GAPs and works out at all the groves as well.

Paul Ward: What’s GAPs? 

Doug O’Hara:  Good Agricultural Practices. Every group has to have a certification and that’s basically safety for workers, safety for the fruit; making sure that you know the harvesting is done correctly and where it’s not; it’s coming off the grove without pesticides on it, without any kind of contaminants on it. Every packer requires you to have a GAP certification. It’s a process. It’s knowing you have to come out and get inspected once a year or you have to do certain things. You have a list of things to do. It’s just good for the environment. It’s close to being organic but it’s not a hundred percent organic. It’s a very good thing for each grove to have. Then the employees in the field;  I have anywhere from 50 to 500 at times, depending how busy we are. So a lot of employees to do all the work.

Paul Ward: A lot of workers! Are there any properties that you saw that maybe thought, “Man, I’m not sure how I’m going to turn this property around?” but the owner was just adamant about making it right and you were able to step in and make it right?

Doug O’Hara: I think one of my favorite things to do is to take a piece of property and start over and do it from scratch. I’ve done that. I’ve had a couple properties in Fillmore and Piru area, old orange groves that were 50, 60, 70 years old and organic that just weren’t looking good. The owners wanted to redevelop them completely. One redeveloped into an avocado grove, the other one to a lemon grove and basically we tore all the trees, new irrigation and we’re talking each grow was 300 acres plus. So it’s always nice for me to see that it’s like a blank slate, you know, or I would say a blank piece of paper or a blank canvas that I get to design it. I get to say where the pipes go and how we are going to irrigate it and where the valves go. There was another one that went from an elevation of 700 feet up to 2000 feet. Pumping water from 700 feet to 2000 feet and pumping them out of water and we needed it. It was a 600 acre grove. It’s a lot of pumps, a lot of special valves. That was quite a challenge. But you know, when it’s all said and done, it’s producing, it’s a beautiful grove, it just makes you feel like you created something. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun. 

Paul Ward: Very cool. How would somebody get in touch with you, Doug, if they want to have you manage their farm or are considering buying a farm that would need managing?

Doug O’Hara: You can contact me on my email, which is DOHARA@spfarms.com. Our phone number is (805) 523-7200. 

Paul Ward: What are the big issues right now that you’re seeing out there?

Doug O’Hara: Big issues are the cost of labor, cost of water. Luckily in Ventura County where a majority of our properties are on wells and there’s a lot of water under the ground. We just have to be better stewards of it and use water when we need to and use the amount we need to but I would say probably, being in farming in many counties, I would say Ventura County right now is probably the best county to farm in because of the water environment. Whether it’s becoming very popular, as you would know, as being a real estate agent, people are flocking here. San Diego County, Riverside County, they’re having more water issues doing it. They don’t have good well situations; most of them don’t. So they’re flocking here. But we as farmers, we deal with it, know we’re not going anywhere, right?

Doug O’Hara: I know many, many farmers that aren’t shutting down the business and they aren’t running from the county and giving up, if anything, we’re trying harder. And what we do is get more efficient. That’s one thing I like talking to my growers about, “You need to have efficient irrigation systems, even if you have a well, you don’t want to put in more water than you have to; So you want to put what you need on. And fertilizer. A lot of our fertilizers are put through the irrigation system. So you want to make sure that tree gets what that tree needs. You don’t want to leach it down into the groundwater. That ruins the groundwater for everybody. Then we’ve got problems down the line. It may not happen in my lifetime or your lifetime or my children’s lifetime, but you know, we want a farm here for generations.”

Doug O’Hara: There’s many farmers here that have farmed for hundreds of years, families who live here hundreds of years. And they’re the same way. So I know some people think farmers don’t care about things. It’s the opposite, and you know, we’re, we want to be here for a long time. I want my family to be here. I want families to be here. So, yes, Ventura County probably is, like I said,  I’ve been in all counties and it’s probably the best, one of the best places, to farm in the state.

Paul Ward: Good to know. Doug O’Hara, thank you so much for being our guest on this episode of Farm Talk, we greatly appreciate it. Farm Talk is brought to you by The Money Store and Escrow Hub. Be sure to check out our next episode of Farm Talk.