(STOCKTON, CA) - The San Joaquin County Agricultural Commissioner formally presented the 2019 Annual Agricultural Crop Report to the County Board of Supervisors today for approval. The data will be used by the United States Department of Agriculture as part of its annual compilation of detailed agricultural data for every county in the United States.

Agricultural Commissioner, Tim Pelican, announced that the gross value of agricultural production for 2019 was over $2.6 billion, signaling an increase of 0.91 percent from the 2018 value. Pelican reported that overall, agricultural commodity values showed a moderate increase in 2019. Pelican reported the bearing acreage for almonds continues to increase significantly showing a trend more towards permanent crops as can be seen in the trend of fewer row crop acreage.

This year’s theme focused on life of a crop. “We featured various stages of crop growing cycle, depicting seed planting to how it culminates to a consumer table. We gathered our reverent growers’ viewpoint on lifecycle and growing stages of various crops grown in San Joaquin county ranging from cherries, walnuts, sweet corn, asparagus, tomatoes, pumpkins, corn silage and nursery crops,” said San Joaquin County Agricultural Commissioner, Tim Pelican.

Highlights from the 2019 crop year:

• Fruit and Nut Crops continue to be the largest in total value of $1,354,789,000.
• Almonds took the first place with a total value of $449,621,000.
• Milk products were the number two crop with a total value of $378,840,000.
• Livestock and Poultry Products showed the largest increase by 15.6 percent, valuing $540,204,000. This was due to an increase in egg price per dozen and milk price per hundredweight.
• Apiary Products increased by 15.02 percent with a total value of $37,853,000.
• Field crops saw an increase of 1.84 percent due to increase in bearing acreages.

Supervisor Katherine Miller, Chair of the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors commented on this year’s crop report stating, “Over the last year we’ve seen how essential our agriculture industry and it’s vital workforce is to the fiscal, social and environmental well-being of San Joaquin County. They are the fabric and the backbone of our community. The 2019 crop report reflects the hard work and innovation our farmers put into action in order to make San Joaquin County one of the most abundant agricultural regions in the world.”

For the 2019 Crop Report, and past years, please visit: https://www.sjgov.org/department/agcomm/general-info/crop-reports.