Fresno County Still Number One

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

The 2019 production numbers are in, and Fresno County remains the top agricultural producing county in the United States with $7.7 billion dollars in gross agricultural output.

Fresno County Farm Bureau CEO Ryan Jacobsen recently discussed the announcement with our own Patrick Cavanaugh.

Jacobsen… “We talk about the importance of the food that we produce for the nation, the food we produce for the world. But I think this again, allows us to show the economic side to what agriculture and these farms mean to this region.”

Although a very diverse agricultural county, the top 10 crops account for the vast majority of this economic impact.

Jacobsen… “The diversity of our crops is extraordinarily important to the stability of our agriculture industry term. But with that said, the top 10 crops do represent 72% of the overall value. So the overall health of the industry definitely can be gauged where those top 10 crops are.”

Jacobsen is optimistic about the future, but says water is the most important issue to maintaining this level of output.

Jacobsen… “It came on the heels of '18, which was on the drier side, but '17 was a very wet year. But '19 was a very good water year all around, and so that definitely does help. But it does show what we can do with water, and it also kind of recognizes the fact that we are going to have challenges in the future with water, particularly as SGMA comes into full implementation.”