Strawberries top $741M as Santa Cruz County agriculture rebounds from 2023 floods
By Felix Cortez
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SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KSBW) — The annual crop report for Santa Cruz County shows strawberries as the top crop and highlights the agricultural industry’s recovery from the 2023 floods, with organic farming playing a key role.
Larry Jacobs, named Santa Cruz County Farmer of the Year in 2025, is part of the growing organic agriculture industry in the county.
“Business has been good. We see the demand for what we’ve been growing has been growing,” Jacobs said. He noted that while demand hasn’t grown as rapidly as in the initial years, there is still an increase as the public becomes more aware of the benefits of crops grown without pesticides.
Organic production in Santa Cruz County has seen significant growth over the past several years. According to the latest 2024 crop report, organic production was valued at more than $142 million, accounting for roughly one-fifth of all crop production in the county.
The 2024 crop report also indicates a strong production year overall.
“2024 was a really solid production year,” the Dave Sanford, Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner, said. “We saw upticks kind of across the board on most of our major commodities. Berries particularly had a very strong year.”
Strawberries continue to be the number one crop, with production in 2024 valued at more than $741 million, marking a more than 13% increase from the previous year.
The report also shows how the industry is rebounding from the devastating 2023 floods.
“Those storms really impacted the length of the growing season and even just direct physical impacts on some of the production fields. So we did see some loss in ’23 for sure,” Sanford said. “And in ’24 we’re really seeing a bounce back to, you know, the solid values that we were sort of expecting.”
Organic farmers also faced challenges due to the flooding but are recovering, with growers increasing the acreage dedicated to organics. Jacobs Farms, for example, doubled the acreage dedicated to tomatoes.
“The wetter year cut things short a little bit,” Jacobs said. “This year’s going better and we planted more tomatoes this year, so we’re having a good year with our tomatoes.”
This year’s agricultural report was dedicated to Steve Driscoll, who passed away this year after dedicating 17 years to the Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office.
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