Final tally on winter storm damage to Monterey County farms is in: $600 million.

Monterey County has shared the findings of a survey documenting the agricultural impacts of March’s devastating storms—revealing a total of $264 million in current and projected future losses across the county as a result of storm and flood damage.

More than 8,700 acres of crops were destroyed or unable to be planted due to flooding, the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office said Friday, May 12. Half of those acres were “newly impacted” and not documented in the county’s previous January storm survey, which recorded $336 million in damages across more than 15,700 acres. 

Combined, the winter storms cost the county’s agricultural sector some $600 million in losses and impacted just over 20,000 crop acres, according to the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office.

The March survey found that strawberry crops were “significantly affected” by flooding in the Pajaro Valley, one of the region’s main berry-growing areas. Strawberry growers saw more than 1,900 acres damaged and suffered losses totaling $160 million.

Other impacted commodities across the county included lettuces, which experienced $54.4 million in losses; vegetable crops like broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, which saw $24.2 million in losses; caneberries like raspberries and blackberries, which suffered $11.4 million in losses; and wine grapes, which had $1.35 million in losses.

“This has proven to be one of the most difficult winters many of our growers and communities have experienced in our area,” Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner Juan Hidalgo said in a statement. “I am hopeful that having a full picture of the extent of this winter’s damage will open new recovery opportunities and assistance to our impacted growers.”

The survey’s findings on March storm damage are lower than initial estimates provided by county officials and agriculture industry groups, who had previously forecast losses greater than those seen after January’s storms. The California Governor’s Office reported more than $450 million in agricultural losses as a result of the March storms in its request for a federal disaster declaration that month, while the Monterey County Farm Bureau predicted north of $1 billion in total damages across the county’s agricultural sector due to the January and March winter storms.

The 20,000-plus crop acres impacted by the storms also represent less than 6 percent of the county’s nearly 367,000 total crop acres, as recorded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s most recent farm census. Monterey County’s total agricultural production was most recently valued at $4.1 billion.