Grapes still rule; pistachios set new record. Where do other Fresno County crops land?
At almost $8.6 billion, Fresno County’s farmers and ranchers set a new record for the total value of agricultural crops and commodities produced in 2023.
Melissa Cregan, the county’s agricultural commissioner, reported that grapes maintained their top spot, with a value of more than $1.3 billion. It’s the second consecutive year that grapes — for raisins, wine, juice or fresh table grapes — led the county in value ahead of almonds, pistachios, and tomatoes.
The total estimated value of the more than 300 crops or commodities included in the 2023 crop report was $8,589,054,000. That was an increase of more than $493.5 million, or 6.1%, compared to 2022, Cregan told the Fresno County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to present the annual report.
“Fresno County’s agricultural strength is based on the diversity of crops produced,” she said, noting that 73 different crops or commodities posted gross values of at least $1 million last year.
For the county’s pistachio crop, the 155,600 harvested acres and the gross value of more than $862 million were new records.
The top 10 crops or commodities produced in Fresno County in 2023 were:
- Grapes, $1.34 billion.
- Almonds, $1.02 billion.
- Pistachios, $862.0 million.
- Tomatoes, $601.4 million.
- Cattle & calves, $572.4 million.
- Poultry, $546.1 million.
- Milk, $538.3 million.
- Peaches, $365.9 million.
- Garlic, $309.4 million.
- Nectarines, $246.4 million.
Falling out of the top 10 this year were mandarins, those snack-sized, easy-to-peel citrus fruits, displaced by nectarines.
Cregan noted that grapes, almonds and pistachios all maintained their positions in the rankings, although the changes in values were significant. Grapes, for example, added almost $100 million in value compared to last year despite a decline of more than 14,000 acres harvested.
“Almonds, however, lost about $117 million in value but remained in the second spot at just over $1 billion,” Cregan added. “And pistachios increased in value by $156 million to remain in the third spot, with a value of $862 million.”
Tomatoes and milk products swapped places in the 2023 rankings, Cregan said. Tomatoes ranked seventh in 2022 and surged to fourth in 2023, while milk and dairy products dropped from fourth in 2022 to seventh last year.
Grapes had been the county’s dominant crop for most of the past half-century, claiming the top spot for 36 years between 1970 and 2011, occasionally knocked off the perch by cotton. The harvested acreage of grapes peaked in 2012 at more than 255,000 acres before a sustained decline since that time. The 154,000 acres of grapes harvested in 2023 was the lowest it’s been in Fresno County since 1973.
But the meteoric rise in the acreage dedicated to almond trees — from fewer than 6,500 harvested acres in 1970 to an all-time high of more than 327,000 acres in 2023 — took the popular nut to the top of the county’s production values from 2012 through 2021.
Cregan noted that the estimated values reflect the gross production value of each commodity, and not overall profit for farmers and ranchers because the figures do not take into account the expenses that go into producing the crop or commodity.
This story was originally published August 22, 2024 at 11:36 AM.
