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What’s Happing in Monterey County Agriculture?
On Friday, July 12, 2024, your Chamber’s Economic Vitality Committee received a presentation from Norm Groot, Executive Director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau. Here are some interesting remarks from the presentation:
Today (Tuesday, July 16) the Monterey County Board of Supervisors will receive the annual report on county agriculture from the office of the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner. See the report (and the associated staff report) at this link: 2023 Annual County of Monterey Crop & Livestock Report. Also, annual reports from 1929 to 2022 can be found here: Crop & Livestock Reports / Economic Contributions.
Monterey County is ranked #4 in California for “Agricultural Gross Production Value in California” (behind #1 Tulare, #2 Fresno, and #3 Kern). Based on “Market Value of Agricultural Products Sold,” Monterey County is ranked #3 in California and #3 in the United States (behind #1 Fresno and #2 Tulare). The high ranking reflects how climate, soil, and water circumstances allow Monterey County to be one of six areas of the world where crops can be grown year-round. (In December, Monterey County fields are strategically given a “winter fallow period” for pest control and to hinder the spread of viral and fungal crop diseases.)
Monterey County is home to over 150 different crops grown in a wide variety of settings and environments. It’s a predominant supplier for leafy greens and vegetables and leads the state's production for nine crops: lettuce, strawberries, broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, spinach, artichokes, cabbage, and celery. Among recent trends, asparagus is no longer grown in Monterey County (it’s mainly grown in Mexico now).
In contrast to other parts of the country, where large corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Cargill, and Bunge, most of Monterey County’s crops are grown by local families. One family (the Jeffersons) has farmed in the Salinas Valley since 1863 and is in its 8th generation of farmers.
A continual challenge for Monterey County agriculture is aquifer depletion and seawater intrusion. Since 1998, the Monterey County Water Resources Agency (MCWRA) has operated the Castroville Seawater Intrusion Project (CSIP), which uses recycled municipal wastewater from Monterey One Water (M1W) to irrigate crops near the mouth of the Salinas Valley, thus eliminating much of the need for farmers to extract water from aquifers using wells. In 2010, the Monterey County Water Resources Agency began operating the Salinas Valley Water Project (SVWP). This involves releasing a specific amount water from the Nacimiento and San Antonio reservoirs, which then flows down the Salinas River and is collected by a rubber dam and treated by the Salinas River Diversion Facility (SRDF). The water is stored in an 80-acre pond and used to supplement recycled water for the CSIP.
A Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency was established in 2017 (as required by state laws enacted in 2014) to manage and achieve sustainability for the aquifers of six Monterey County sub-basins fed by the Salinas River. The Salinas Valley is a model for creating and operating a Groundwater Sustainability Agency. (In the Central Valley, water interests in some places have failed to come to agreement on how to manage their basins, and the state has given them a “probationary” designation as the first step in state intervention.)
Meanwhile, agriculture faces other issues besides irrigation water supply. These include flood control, pest and disease management, energy use and generation, farmworker housing, legal (and illegal) competing imports from Asia (and the introduction of new pests that come with those imports), skyrocketing land values and their effect on farmers, adoption of new technology, responding to new regulations, and the loss of farmland for utility-scale solar generation facilities. The Monterey County Farm Bureau represents the interests of all facets of agriculture in identifying and responding to these challenges.
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