SANTA CRUZ – Crop production values in Santa Cruz County continue to steadily rise, after local farmers produced more than $657 million in gross value in 2021, representing a 3.4% increase from the previous year.
Strawberries, often a formidable “top crop” contender, retained the coveted title in 2021, boasting a value of $211 million – about 33% of total crop values and $100 million more than the second place finisher, nursery stock.
“This report shows signs that our local agricultural industry began to return to normal in 2021,” said Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner Juan Hidalgo in a prepared release last week. “We would like to thank everyone in the local agricultural community who made this report possible: farmers, ranchers, boards, commissions, packinghouses and agencies who contributed important data and information.”
The figures were released last week by Hidalgo as part of the 2021 Crop Report, an annual study conducted by the agency that estimates acreage, yield and total value of agricultural products.
Last year’s totals are the third in a row where agricultural values increased in the county, a welcome sight to local farmers and officials. The rising trend comes on the heels of a tumultuous period in the county where numbers dropped for the first time in a decade in 2017 and then again in 2019.
“It is important to emphasize that figures presented in this report are gross values and do not include costs incurred by growers that include but are not limited to labor, land preparation, irrigation, pest management, transportation, cooling, marketing, equipment, assessments, regulatory costs or loss experienced by individual operations,” writes Hidalgo in the crop report.
Nursery stock, which took a significant hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, experienced a stellar rebound in 2021 with a gross value of $136.7 million or a 14% increase from 2020.
Vegetable production was another crop that experienced encouraging growth in 2021, hitting a high mark of $95.8 million or a 7% increase from the previous year.
But the report wasn’t all peachy. Organic farming took a striking loss in 2021, with total acres dropping from 7,917 in 2020 to 7,118 in 2021 and gross earnings declining from $135.6 million in 2020 to $110.3 million in 2021 – an 18.7% difference.
According to the release, this fluctuation is somewhat expected for organic operations, which are subject to influence from a number of factors. “Organic acreage and value can change from year to year and some of this change can be attributed to crop rotations and types of commodities grown,” county staff wrote in its statement.
Organic acreage was as low as 6,702 acres in 2017 with a value of $109 million. It increased to 8,032 acres and a $147.6 million value in 2019, before declining to the 2020 totals previously stated.
For other crops such as wine grapes, 2021 was a “banner year,” with high yields that lead to $7.9 million in gross value, which is a 65% increase from 2020, according to the release.
The full report is available at agdept.com.
Top crops
- Strawberries, $211 million
- Nursery stock, $110.9 million
- Raspberries, $110.8 million
- Blackberries, $69 million
- Misc. vegetables, $55.3 million
Source: Santa Cruz County 2021 Crop Report, Santa Cruz Sentinel
