Avocados bring tourism, revenue to Carpinteria

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

If it’s beer and music, clothing and jewelry or a myriad of avocados one is looking for this weekend, chances are it’s all readily available in excess at the California Avocado Festival, which kicked off its 21st year yesterday in Carpinteria.
The festival, coined the biggest free event of its kind on the Central Coast, showcases hundreds of non profit and commercial vendors and draws avocado lovers from throughout the state.


“They're the best, buttery, tasty [avocados],” said Adeline Brian, who did some early shopping at the festival yesterday while many vendors were still busy setting up. “You can’t find them anywhere that’s why we come here.”
Brian made the trip to Carpinteria from Oxnard with her sister JoAnne Tango, who was busy heckling David Righetti, a grower of several different avocado varietals in San Luis Obispo County.
Righetti’s selection of avocados varied from the most common varietal known as Hass, to others the size of cantaloupe.
Jeff Moorhouse, president of the festival, who’s also been nicknamed “The Big Pit,” said the mission of the festival is three fold. He said it provides a venue for local non profits to raise money, promotes tourism in the Carpinteria Valley and most importantly he said, promotes the California avocado, with emphasis on California.
“It’s truly a community event,” Moorhouse said. “There’s plenty of festivals to go to this weekend, [but] this is the biggest and it’s free.”
For Moorhouse, the avocado isn’t merely a tasty fruit, it passively preserves the way of life in Carpinteria, which he said is most notably a tight knit, small community.
“Agriculture in general has been an important part of keeping Carpinteria the small, vibrant community that it is,” Moorhouse said.
He said that census reports 20 years ago showed Carpinteria’s population at about 15,000, and reports today say the same. He attributes this to the fact that viable crops grow over swaths of prime land that in other states would be bulldozed and consumed by tract housing.
“So long as [agriculture] thrives, we’ll continue to be a quaint little town that so many people love,” he said.
Mary Marquez and her husband Cecilio, owners of the 40 acre Rancho Santa Cecilia in Carpinteria, said they’ve been selling their plump selection of avocados at the festival for nearly 20 years.
“It’s a great festival,” Mary Marquez said. “We recommend it to anyone who’s never come out.”
Despite the good cheer on hand yesterday, the stinging memory of strong winter winds and a harsh freeze during January and February, which left thousands of pounds and likely millions of dollars of avocados on the ground, lingers in the memory of some growers.
“It’s been a rough season this year,” Mary Marquez said.
Rick Shade, who manages about 350 acres of avocados in the Carpinteria area, said the damage from the weather related disasters won’t fully be known for another month, when the profits, or lack thereof, are tallied.
Shade did say that although many growers suffered during the winter, most came out of it in relatively good shape.
“It’s been a very difficult year, a very trying year,” Shade said. “Most [growers] were able to have a decent year but not a great year.”
But for now, its time to enjoy the agricultural product that Carpinteria has become well known for.
In order to do that, a fleet of Carpinteria High School cheerleaders will be busy at 6 a.m. today and tomorrow mashing avocados in what may very well be the biggest guacamole vat in the world.
Samantha Stahr, one of the cheerleaders who will be busy making the beloved guacamole, said the money made at their tent goes to purchase cheer leading outfits and supports many other activities through the year.
Shade agrees that the festival is a good time, but is also great for business.
“I think it’s very important,” he said of the festival. “A lot of people experience a myriad of things to do with avocados. Once they experience [it], they’re going to buy more fruit and that’s good for me.”
The festival consumes much of Linden Avenue, from Carpinteria Avenue to the beach. It runs 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow. More information is available at www.avofest.com.