Early data is out for California’s 2018 cash receipts, which shows an increase that’s supported by specialty crops. The California Department of Food and Agriculture issued an initial overview of agriculture cash receipts for last year. The industry overall received almost $50 million, which is up from 2017’s adjusted totals. Grapes, cattle/calves, tomatoes, and oranges all saw an increase in revenues last year compared to 2017. Pistachios, who may have seen the most significant increase in the report, jumped over a million dollars and up to fifth on the top-ten list.
Dairy remained the number one crop on the production list but did see a decline in the early numbers. Almonds, strawberries, and lettuce also saw a slight decrease. The top-ten producing crops for 2018 in order were dairy, grapes, almonds, cattle/calves, pistachios, strawberries, lettuce, floriculture, tomatoes, and onions.
Over one-third of the nations vegetables and two-thirds of the nation’s fruit continues to be grown in California. The Golden State accounts for 13 percent of the country’s total value for 2018.
It’ll be interesting to see changes in the top markets for 2018 when CDFA releases the data. The top ten markets for California in 2017 were the European Union, Canada, China/Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Koria, India, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Vietnam. As the industry is well aware of, tariff increases for several of those markets took place in 2018.
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