Annual Crop and Livestock report is in

The annual crop and livestock report was presented to the Imperial County Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning.

Overall the report was positive but there is some room for improvement.

“I’m pleased to announce that the gross value is over two billion dollars,” said Carlos Ortiz, Imperial County Ag Commissioner.

The numbers today reflected an increase of 7.17% from 2015. Imperial County ranked number 11 out of 58 counties in California and sugar beets remained the sole producer.There was a decrease when it came to cattle.

“Cattle had a 10% decrease in value from 2015 mainly to; we had a 4% decrease in headcount and 11% decrease in market price,” explained Ortiz.

Ortiz says the decrease is due to a number of things that included competition from other meats and the U.S. dollar affecting the export market.

“We hit two billion dollars, and that is in gross production value. So what people need to understand is that’s not the money that goes into the farmer’s pocket after profit, that’s the money that comes in, that’s what they sold their commodity for,” said Lindsay Dale, Executive Director of Imperial County Farm Burearu.
Dale says they have seen a decrease in 2017 but those numbers will not be available till next year.

“2016 was a relatively stable year for most commodities. We saw a decrease in alfalfa and alfalfa production is a quarter of our acreage here in Imperial County. We did see a decrease in that number, mainly our export markets were a little decreased and our domestic markets as well,” explained Dale.

With the new organic packing shed in Imperial Valley, dale is hopeful 2017 will have an increase in the organic market.

“Agriculture is the number one industry in imperial county, always has been, always will be. It’s our number one boost to our economy. It’s very interesting to see the evolution of our Ag industry here in Imperial County by looking to those reports,” added Dale.

If you would like to take a look at the full report yourself, you can visit http://www.co.imperial.ca.us/index.asp.