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Business & Tech

Pista Farmlands Apple Orchards Protected From Development

The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County has announced a campaign to preserve 10,000 more acres in 2012.

Pista Farmlands, one of the main apple suppliers to Martinelli's & Company, has placed their 75 acres of farmland on an agricultural conservation easement with the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County. The easement ensures that the land will never be used for anything but agriculture.

"I can't even build a building on the land now, unless it is for agriculture," said Mark Pista, owner of Pista Farmlands.

The Pista family still owns the land, but they have sold their right to develop the land. During a time when there is more and more land being bought up by corporations, Pista and his wife Carol wanted to protect their orchard from possible development in the future. The land, located between Amesti Road and Corralitos Creek northwest of Watsonville, is just one parcel away from the city of Watsonville, making it a more likely candidate for development.

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"We want to keep this ground in agriculture and try to preserve farming in the Pajaro Valley," said Pista. "We feel that farming provides jobs for a lot of people that might not find work otherwise."

Pista's family has farmed this piece of land since 1919, and his family's history of farming goes back even further to 1896 when his grandfather immigrated from Croatia and began growing apples and apricots in Natividad in Salinas Valley.

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Pista Farmlands joins the 2,000 acres of farm and ranch land in Pajaro Valley and the 485 acres of farmland and wetlands near the Watsonville Sloughs that the Land Trust has protected from development. Looking forward, the Land Trust has announced a campaign to protect 10,000 acres in Santa Cruz County by the end of 2012, including the former CEMEX forest lands above Davenport, and Star Creek Ranch in the Pajaro Hills east of Watsonville.

The Department of Conservation's California Farmland Conservance Program has been largely responsible in providing the funding for easements. Since they began, they have contributed $77.4 million to permenantly shield over 52,000 acres of the state's most vulnerable agricultural land from development.

According to the Department of Conservation, California is expected to grow from its current 34 million to 50 million by 2025, and the need for new homes is expected to put strain on the nation's leading agricultural economy.

“We congratulate the Pista family and the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County on the creation of this conservation easement and encourage other local landowners to explore the easement option for their property,” said Brian Leahy, head of DOC’s Division of Land Resource Protection, which administers the CFCP.

Although the land trust agreement ensures that the land will never be used for development, Pista says he can't be certain that it will always be used for growing apples.

"With the pressure of berries in this area, I don't see it continuing. It's a tough business, to plant a new orchard it takes a while for it to mature. With berries your income is faster. Once this generation goes, whoever buys the land will probably lease it out to a berry grow, or at least that's been the trend," Pista said.

As the berry industry continues to increase with companies like Dole buying up neighboring plots of land, the apples industry has seen a decline in Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley.

"There’s been a change in the whole apple industry. In my grandfather's time they were sent all over the world, and then just California, and now we mainly just supply Martinelli's," said Pista. "Thank god he's here or we'd be doing something else," Pista added.

Pista Farmlands has provided Martinelli's with Newtown Pippin apples for the past 30 years.

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