If you regularly pass by the corner of Davis and Blanco roads just outside Salinas, maybe you’ve noticed the fast-growing artichoke field there, now easily chest-high.
These are not your grandfather’s artichokes: They’re annuals, or one-year crops, a shift from the old-school perennials that produce for years. They’ll be harvested this summer, well past the classic perennial artichoke’s spring season. And they mature faster.
“I used to go show my dad an annual field and say, ‘There are as many artichokes here right now as you used to pick in a year,’” Joe Pezzini, chief operating officer of Ocean Mist Farms says. “How artichokes are grown has radically changed.”
Those changes are part of an evolving agricultural industry that’s growing faster than an annual artichoke field. The value of crops grown in Monterey County reached a record $4.5 billion in 2014, according to the annual crop report released July 7 by County Agricultural Commissioner Eric Lauritzen. That marks a 6.5-percent increase over 2013, a previous record-setting year.
The top crop was leaf lettuce, valued at more than $775 million, reclaiming the number-one spot from strawberries, which topped the list in 2013. (Strawberries still came in second place at $710 million.)
Twenty-six different crops, including lemons, kale, cabbage and parsley, exceeded $10 million in value each, evidence of a diverse crop rotation in the Salinas Valley.
The growth comes despite a series of industry pressures – drought, a labor shortage and warmer climate among them. Those challenges did downwardly affect a few popular crops, including artichokes, which ranked 17th last year, with a value of $41 million. That’s down from $47 million the previous year, due to market prices and reduced acreage.
Warmer winters mean the plume moth, a pest that burrows into artichoke stalks, can now produce eight generations in a year, compared to their historic six.
And facing a tight labor market, Ocean Mist Farms has relied for two years on temporary guest workers bussed in from Mexico through the federal H-2A program.
Housing is an H-2A requirement, so Ocean Mist rented rooms in a Salinas hotel and at a labor camp near Gonzales. Eventually, the company will need to build its own housing, Pezzini says: “It’s inevitable. [Immigration reform] is a dead end for who knows how long.”
But he knows that’s not easy, considering opposition to a farmworker housing proposal by Tanimura & Antle, which employs about 1,800 field workers.
“For the first time in 33 years, Tanimura & Antle has exhausted its wait list for field laborers in Salinas,” according to an FAQ by the company on its project plans to house H-2A workers.
In a weird way, warmer weather and drought conditions might’ve even helped one big category: wine grapes.
“In 2013-14, the climate was ideal,” Kim Stemler, director of the Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association said at a press conference announcing the crop report findings.
“We expected to see these increases.”
At $247 million, wine grapes were the sixth most valuable crop in the county last year. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are the top varieties, respectively.
“The wine industry in Monterey County is thriving,” Stemler said.