The Kern County agricultural commissioner’s 2025 crop report puts the county’s gross crop value at about $8.93 billion, up roughly 12% from the $7.96 billion recorded for 2024. Harvested acreage moved the other way, down about 4%. The report was covered on Sept. 29 and Oct. 1.
Five crops each cleared $1 billion. Pistachios took first place for the first time, at roughly $1.3 to $1.4 billion, up from fifth the prior year. Grapes, citrus, almonds (about $1.12 billion) and carrots (about $1.03 billion) followed.
The acreage losses were not evenly spread. Fruit and nut plantings contracted by 16,858 acres, field crops by 13,304 acres, almonds by about 8,000 acres, processing tomatoes by 5,100 acres and wine grapes by 3,800 acres. Mike Ming, a local farmland appraiser, attributed the pattern to groundwater rules: “This is all SGMA.” Al Bates, president of Sun Pacific Shippers, said water costs significantly more in some parts of the county than in others.
The report also records a shift in export destinations, with Mexico displacing China as the top destination by phytosanitary certificate count — 3,742 against 867 — which the reporting attributes to retaliatory tariffs.
One caution on the numbers: the two outlets that covered the report give different harvested-acreage totals for 2025, 786,599 acres in one account and 759,588 in the other, while agreeing on the roughly 4% decline. The county’s own published report is the document to reconcile against before any of these figures is reused.
The same groundwater pressure sits behind the state’s new willingness to waive Williamson Act cancellation fees for farmland going to solar. Kern’s producers and markets are listed on the Kern County page, and the shift from annual row crops into permanent plantings is the kind of long-horizon bet examined in time preference and the plate. Growers selling direct are listed in our Producers directory.
Why this matters for SoCal: Kern is one of the ten counties and the clearest local instance of a trade now running across the region — fewer acres, higher value, and a shift out of annual row crops into permanent plantings that do not convert back to vegetables on short notice.
Update, Oct. 20, 2026: Two more of the ten counties have since reported. San Luis Obispo County cleared $1 billion for a fifth straight year, and in Ventura County a Farm Bureau study found that production costs now exceed gross revenue on its two largest crops.
Sources: Kern County crops gain value as farmland decreases, SJV Sun, Oct. 1, 2026 · New crop report illustrates big changes in local ag, The Bakersfield Californian, Sept. 29, 2026