These are the crops that California’s most agricultural counties produce
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — The majority of California’s top 10 agricultural counties are all located in one region: the San Joaquin Valley.
The San Joaquin Valley counties that make up the list are Fresno, Kern, Kings, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare counties. (The three remaining counties that make up the valley, which didn’t make the list of top agricultural producers, are Inyo, Madera and Mono counties.) Monterey, Imperial and Ventura counties round out the top 10 agricultural list.
According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, in 2020, Fresno was ranked as the top agricultural county, moving up one spot from 2019 and swapping places with Kern County. Ventura County broke into the top 10 list from the number 11 spot. Half of the counties in the top 10 have almonds in their lists of leading commodities. Other crops that appear more than once include grapes, pistachios and lettuce. In order of their rank for 2020, these are the commodities that each county grows and that helped put them ahead of other spots in California.
- Fresno: almonds, pistachios, poultry (unspecified) and grapes (table).
- Kern: grapes (table), almonds, pistachios, tangerines, and mandarins
- Tulare: milk, oranges (navel), cattle and calves and grapes (table)
- Monterey: strawberries, lettuce (romaine), lettuce (head) and broccoli
- Merced: milk, almonds, chickens (broilers) and sweet potatoes
- Stanislaus: almonds, milk, chickens (unspecified), cattle and calves
- San Joaquin: almonds, milk, grapes (wine) and walnuts
- Kings: milk, pistachios, cattle and calves, and cotton (pima)
- Imperial: cattle (heifers and steers), vegetables, alfalfa hay and lettuce (leaf)
- Ventura: strawberries, lemons, avocados and raspberries