We're Number One
Moooo've Over Fresno...Milk, Cream Helps Tulare
Rise To The Top

Tulare County - Over the past decade Tulare County's crop value has gone up year by year with a pause for the 1990 freeze while neighboring Fresno County has had a more flatline increase (since 1993). One of these days Tulare County - led by the rising value of milk produced here - was bound to take over the number one position. Now we know - or we think - that year was 2001. We hedge our bet because third place Monterey County - king of vegetable production in California - has not yet reported its 2001 findings.

For 2001 Tulare County is reporting a total value of all commodities produced at $3,494,006,600 - nearly $3.5 billion compared to $3.2 billion for Fresno County whose values dropped 1.8% for 2001. Third place Monterey County reported nearly a $2.9 billion mark in 2000 up from $2.44 billion in 1999 - a 23% increase. Another big jump in 2001 could maybe rival the Tulare number.

Monterey Farm Bureau executive director Bob Perkins doesn't think their county will surpass last year's performance. "It was a tough market in 2001 and I don't know how much it is likely to go down from 2000, but I would be very surprised if it went up," he says. Assistant Monterey Ag Commissioner Bob Roach says the 2001 number in fact will be down.

So, Tulare County is the number one farm producing county in the USA - tall bragging rights for us in the year we are celebrating our 150th birthday as a county. "We've begun to work on what will be a potent economic spin in our marketing," says a Tulare County Economic Development Corporation president Paul Saldana. "We're number one sounds pretty good."

The comparative ranking of Fresno and Tulare counties tells the tale of the local farm economy with Fresno big in grapes, cotton and processing tomatoes feeling the pinch of lower commodity prices in all three crops in the past year with a huge decline in grape sales down almost one third in 2001.

Meanwhile Tulare County - the state's largest dairy producing county - saw milk values rise to an astounding $1.15 billion - the first "billion dollar commodity for any county in California," ag commissioner Gary Kunkel told the Tulare County Board of Supervisors this week. The average price of milk rose in 2001 by $2.43 per hundredweight in 2001 ($13.74) and production grew about 11% in a year. That pushed the total dollar value increase by nearly $300 million.

Meanwhile, oranges - the county's number two crop was up nearly $100 million over freeze damaged levels of 2000. Also cattle moved up even as grapes took a dive to the number four position in 2001. Altogether Tulare County's crop report increase just over $425 million from the year before, an all-time record for the county even as Fresno County declined by about $180 million after declining over 4% in 2000 compared to 1999.

Meanwhile, in Kings County crop values were up over 7% the Kings County ag commissioner reported earlier this month. The county reported $952 million in production value also led by a big increase in milk - up more than 23%.

"Although declining revenues have been experienced by many producers in recent years, Tulare County's agricultural diversity continues to be its strength. While individual commodities may struggle from year to year, there always seem to be those that emerge even stronger than before," Kunkel said in a statement.

According to Commissioner Kunkel, Tulare County now has 51 commodities each valued at more than $1 million.

"This is a bittersweet milestone for Tulare County," Board of Supervisors chairman Steve Worthley said, "While we are proud that we are now the number one ag county in the world, we must remember that many of our farmers and ranchers are continuing to struggle with economic hardship."

Supervisor Bill Sanders, whose district includes much of Tulare County's citrus industry, welcomed the report's findings and "validates this Board's commitment to preserve farmland and to maintain that commitment into the future."

Supervisor Connie Conway, who represents many constituents involved in the dairy industry said, "This year's crop reports shows that the dairy industry is the linchpin to our economy. There's no better argument for supporting our dairy farmers than the findings contained in this report."

Supervisor Bill Maze saluted the results of this year's crop report and its significance for Tulare County, "As a plum, grape and citrus grower, I am proud to be a part of making history."

Supervisor Jim Maples, the Board's senior member, has seen many crop reports and echoed his colleagues' pride, "I am extremely pleased by this year's report and the number one ranking has come quicker than we thought." Maples continued, "The crop report is proof that the country, cities, the Farm Bureau, and the ag industry have worked well together in protecting farmland while meeting the needs of continuing growth."

Boosting demand for milk in both Kings and Tulare counties are two huge new cheese plants coming online this spring demanding 6 million gallons of milk daily each. In Lemoore two Leprino plants and in Tulare the new C&P International cheese and whey plant are just getting underway after hundreds of millions have been spent to build or remodel the three facilities. C&P is doing test runs of milk in the plant this week and plans to be in production May 6th.

The multi digit increase in milk production values confirms the economic importance of the dairy industry to California. Consider this simple fact, while the number of dairies in Tulare County is only a few higher than it was in 1990, the value of the milk they produce has gone from about $400 million in one year to $1.1 billion. Adding the value of cattle and calves produced in the county - mostly dairy animals - and feed crops produced here for the dairy industry, the value of the dairy industry rises to about 45% of the entire crop report! That of course doesn't count the value of what you do with the milk after it is produced or the processing, packaging, trucking and storing the milk related commodities that have transformed Tulare County in the past decade.

Even for supporters of the dairy industry, the scary notion is that some 200,000 plus milking cows are waiting in the wings for stalled permits to build new dairies in Tulare County that would add to the 340,000 milking cows we have today - a prospect of future double digit growth in production that could push this county past $3 billion in production in a few years depending on milk prices (down somewhat this year).

Even as the cotton industry shrank, demand for feed crops for all these local animals, increases helping to keep land values from collapsing further. "Our family is not producing cotton this year for the first time in 70 years," says Tipton farmer Ralph Friend who will grow forage crops on about 1000 acres this year.

Declining land values are the dark side for central valley farmers, however. In mid April the California Chapter of American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers held their annual spring outlook in Visalia and reported declining ag real estate values for the second year in a row. The group reported values dropped $1000 per acre or more on all land with almonds, prunes, grapes and other crops. Olive orchards declined in value from a range of $4000 to $6500 per acre in 2001 compared to $4500 to $6500 per acre in 2000. The year before the same organization suggested central valley orchards, vineyards and row crop prices declined from about $10,000 an acre to just $8000 an acre compared to 1999 prices. The same report suggested a big drop in citrus value in southern Tulare County. Lower property values spell another headache for farmers - trouble getting production loans from lenders.

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Tulare County - Cotton acreage in Fresno County fell about 5000 acres last year according to the recent Fresno crop report. Still at 286 thousand acres it remains the county's top crop at $368 million up from third place in 2000. Upland Alcala cotton fell to 171,000 acres from 220,000 the year before, while Pima took off in 2001 shooting up from just 33,000 acres in 2000 to 109,400 acres in 2001. It was the strength of Pima that put the total returns from 2001 ahead of last year.

Acreage fell in Tulare County as well by over 2000 acres to 77,000 in the county as the total value fell from $71.6 million to $68.7 million in 2001. Cotton acreage in Tulare County is far below a decade ago when 136,000 acres were harvested.

The value of cotton in Kings County dropped about 8% but still makes up some 25% of the value for the county's top ten crops. Milk is number one at 45% of the top ten crop value.

Valley farmers have had a love affair with cotton that thrives in the summer heat characterized by low or no rain. No long term commitment need be made and cotton unlike other commodities can be held off the market and stored for long periods until prices improve and can be rotated with other crops when conditions aren't favorable. But low world prices for the past few years has cotton acreage now on the decline but with little other alternatives. Most cotton farmers get some kind of government help to keep afloat.

This year's cotton crop is already planted but farmers don't know the outcome of the new Farm Bill that may not offer subsidy to larger farmers. Still the acreage could fall by 15-25% Calcot believes.

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Tulare County - Returns to grape farmers in the central valley fell in 2001 led by Fresno County where the total value dropped from $491 million in 2000 to $343 million - a whopping 30% plus decline. In Tulare County a declining acreage factor, lower yields and reduced prices paid to farmers combined to decrease revenues by $57.5 million, says ag commissioner Gary Kunkel. The lower price knocked grapes out of its traditional third place ranking in the county into fourth.

Grapes fetched $361 million in 2001 compared to $419 million in 2000.

Tulare County grape acreage dropped 10,000 acres last year to 68,686 acres as many growers pulled their unprofitable vines. Acreage of table, raisin and wine grapes fell in Tulare County last year. The value of the 2001 grape crops here is the lowest since the 1992 crop year, says Mr. Kunkel. This spring a large number of unpruned vines portend even less acreage this year.

Wine growers in Tulare County have been particularly hard hit with low prices this past year causing a number of major growers to pull thousands of acres. The Lagomarsino family pulled out wine grapes altogether. Just what the effect of the loss of wine grape crop land here will have on a number of local wineries isn't clear.

The Fresno crop report says production of raisins fell from 11.22 tons per acre average in 2000 compared to 6.93 tons per acre return in 2001. Table grape production fell from 9.37 tons per acre to 6.90 tons per acre. Still the total acreage of grapes in Fresno County actually went up last year by over 5000 acres to 230,000 acres.

Grape values in the county fell almost $150 million - a huge decline for what has been the county's number one crop. The loss knocked it down to number two behind cotton.

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Tulare County - Tulare County's number two ranked crop, oranges, gained in 2001 to over $530 million up for the third straight year. Last year orange returns were listed at $451 million. However, a closer look shows the biggest crop, navel oranges, declined in both tonnage and price on almost 800 fewer acres. Meanwhile, the Valencia crop production shot up to 356 thousand tons up from 273 thousand tons the year before and the price per ton improved increasing the value of the crop by nearly $100 million.

Citrus acreage in the county is now over 110,000 acres with some 2000 acres non-bearing trees coming on line. That compares to about 89,000 acres in 1990 and 109,000 acres in 1998.

Citrus Mutual president Joel Nelsen says the higher value of the Valencia crop in 2001 represents a return to higher production after the freeze. "Valencia's are alternate bearing anyway," says Nelsen and the short crop in 2000 includes freeze related production drops. Still, even with higher values in 2001, the Valencia crop for farmers "was a disaster" admits Nelsen because farmers lost money.

Nelsen says orange farmers this year are seeing improved returns even though there is a short crop "maybe the shortest in 15 years," says Nelsen. "Production is averaging only 400 cartons per acre compared to the typical production of 600 to 700 cartons per acre," he says. More of the crop has to go into the boxes for growers to break even this year, he says.

Nelsen says some good news for the industry is that if production increases for next season, a number of the packing houses that closed this past year due to the short crop could reopen. Nelsen also hailed the decision by the US government not to appeal a decision by a judge to further stall imports of Argentine citrus awaiting a pest study.

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