Sowing the seeds of future cooperation, the commander of Naval Base Ventura County told a group of local farmers Thursday that the Navy might be their best ally for protecting their fields from creeping development.

At an annual business meeting of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, Capt. Brad "Brick" Conners said both the Navy and farmers have an interest in preserving agricultural land from encroaching urban development.

Conners' keynote talk at the annual Farm Bureau meeting at Ventura's Pierpont Inn was a first. No one from the base has spoken to the group before, and he said it was part of a broader mission by him and his command staff to communicate with local leaders about the work they do.

"What I'm most surprised by is how many people don't know about the base," said Conners, adding that he also wants to hear from people outside the base. "We need to know your concerns so that we can be mutually supportive of one another."

Beyond the mutual interests in preserving agricultural land, the base is also a major economic engine for the local economy, Farm Bureau CEO John Krist said.

"We are excited about the possibilities for strategic partnership between these two important institutions," Krist said. "Both share an interest in good land stewardship and a concern over housing encroachment in this environmentally sensitive region."

Naval Base Ventura County, the fifth largest Navy base in the world, pumps $1.6 billion into the local economy, employs about 17,000 military personnel and civilians, according to a new economic impact study to be released at the end of the month. The base also shares the operations for the deepwater Port of Hueneme, which is used for both military and commercial shipping. The airfields at Point Mugu are used by the fleet of C-130 firefighting planes operated by the Channel Islands Air National Guard, Conners said.

In the future, the Navy and local farmers could work toward protecting agricultural land, he said. Having open space or agricultural land around military institutions can be the kind of buffer needed to keep a base operational, Conners said.

He showed an aerial photo of the Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Va., taken in 1960 that showed the airstrips surrounded by patches of farmland.

Then he showed a slide showing how development had hemmed in the base on all sides.

Despite spending some $50 million in recent years buying up easements, the Virginia base is not as useful for training future naval aviators. Conners said the agricultural resources that surround Point Mugu, which is part of Naval Base Ventura County, look much like Oceana did 48 years ago.