San Luis Obispo County has topped $1 billion in agricultural value for four years in a row. And Ventura County produces more than $2 billion in crops every year. But those numbers are not the story. The people are.
Families. Generations of them, who made a decision to put their hands in this soil and grow something. And who are still making that decision, every season.
In the latest episode of Central Coast Pulse, the podcast of American Riviera Bank, we sat down with three of the people at the center of that story.
“You hope you don’t screw it up. But each generation has this wonderful ability to add what they want to the next.”
Daniel Sinton is a sixth-generation cattle rancher whose family has worked the hills east of San Luis Obispo since 1875. His great-great-grandfather Bernard arrived from Germany and built a working cattle ranch. Today, Daniel and his sons are adding a new chapter.
In Oxnard, Hank Laubacher Jr. grows strawberries on land his great-grandfather came to from Ohio. He describes a business under pressure from every direction, from water costs to market windows compressed by competition from Mexico and Florida.
“Even when you do everything right, the weather doesn’t care.”
Paul Clark, Executive Director of the SLO Farm Bureau, an organization that has been advocating for agricultural families in San Luis Obispo County for over a hundred years, helps put it all in context.
“The numbers don’t tell the whole story.”
Three conversations hosted by three American Riviera Bank team members who know this land almost as well as the farmers and ranchers themselves. Heidi Cummings, ARB’s First Vice President and Regional Manager, grew up with memories of the Sinsheimer Brothers store in San Luis Obispo, the same store that started the Sinton family’s land story in 1875. Brian Donovan, Senior Vice President Regional Commercial Relationship Manager with forty years of lending experience on the Central Coast, understands the financial anatomy of a strawberry operation as well as any farmer alive. And, Ann Hansen, ARB’s Vice President and Chief Agricultural Lender, whose own family is in agriculture, has spent her career building banking relationships in this community.
What emerges from these three conversations is something more than a portrait of an industry under pressure. It’s a portrait of place. Of what it means to be genuinely rooted in a region to know its soil, its weather, its families, and its rhythms well enough to serve them when it matters most.
Listen to Episode 2 of Central Coast Pulse, “Roots That Run Deep,” wherever you get your podcasts. And download our free Farm To Table resource guide to find local farms, farmers' markets, and direct-to-consumer options across Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties.
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