Production costs in Ventura County now exceed gross revenue on the county’s two largest crops, according to a cost-of-production study published Oct. 2 by the Farm Bureau of Ventura County. Strawberries earned $807 million and cost $815.1 million to grow, a net loss of about $8.1 million. Lemons earned $181.7 million against $203.5 million in costs, a loss of about $21.8 million. The county’s total agricultural production value for 2025 was about $2.4 billion, its largest annual total on record.
Measured in constant 2015 dollars, the Farm Bureau puts that record gross figure down 19% since 2015. Net return per acre is down 80% across four major crop groups and 84% for vegetables. The study tracks two input lines in particular: irrigation water has risen from $22.10 to $88.83 per acre-inch since 2007, and farm labor from $13.00 to $25.16 an hour, a 94% increase in five years.
Louise Lampara, CEO of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County, said the study is the first of its kind in the county and possibly the state, and argued that reporting gross value alone creates a false impression that farmers are wealthy. Lisa Tate, a sixth-generation citrus and avocado grower, said she had estimated her lemon losses at about four cents per dollar and the study put them at twelve, meaning a $1 million operation would lose $120,000. Tate also said farm foreclosures rose 46% in 2025, a figure she prefaced with “I think” and which should be treated as unverified.
The county’s response was reported on Oct. 18. Supervisor Matt LaVere said about 1,000 agricultural acres were fallow last year and that seven of the county’s top ten crops “are not winning.” He and Supervisor Jeff Gorell are working to streamline permitting for small farms, and LaVere wants to revisit the SOAR initiative, which restricts non-agricultural use of farmland: it “was meant to restrict residential growth but it’s having serious consequences for farmers.” Harold Edwards, CEO of Limoneira, said the company has not “been able to make money in lemons since 2018”; it is replacing lemons with avocados, which remain profitable for many growers. No ordinance or ballot measure has been introduced.
The county’s own 2025 crop report, presented in June, reached a similar conclusion from the gross side — a record year with shrinking margins. Why a record headline figure and a losing year stopped being a contradiction is the subject of how money broke food, and whether farmland itself still holds value is the subject of is farmland a hard asset. Producers and markets in the county are listed on the Ventura County page.
Why this matters for SoCal: Ventura is the closest large-scale growing county to Los Angeles and supplies much of the region’s strawberries and lemons, and this is the first local accounting of how little of that $2.4 billion is actually margin.
The next county to report measured the same crop from the gross side only: San Luis Obispo County cleared $1 billion for a fifth straight year, with strawberries at nearly 28% of its total and no cost study against it.
Sources: The region is facing an ag crisis. Ventura County is ground zero. — Pacific Coast Business Times, Oct. 18, 2026 · Economics of the Acre — Farm Bureau of Ventura County · Hidden Production Costs Bankrupting Ventura County Farmers — The Packer, Oct. 2, 2026