Monterey County agriculture grew in value by 5 percent last year, a partial rebound.

Different shades of green are grown in Monterey County fields. In the county’s biggest industry there is variety: more than 30 kinds of crops are grown. Officials say this diversity mitigated the impacts of wildfires and the Covid-19 pandemic, and helped the industry begin a rebound.

The total gross production value of agriculture in Monterey County in 2021 was $4.1 billion, according to the annual crop report, published on Tuesday, July 12. That’s an increase of $189.5 million, almost 5 percent, from 2020, a year marked with challenges.

For the second consecutive year, strawberries snatched the rank of leading crop – with a value of $968.1 million, accounting for roughly a quarter of the industry’s total sales. Next was leaf lettuce, then in third a relatively new crop, cannabis, edging out head lettuce, broccoli and wine grapes.

Wine grapes are back in the mix as a highly valuable crop, climbing to the fifth-most valuable – the same rank they had in 2018. Grapes, greatly affected by 2020 wildfires, fell in value by 43 percent that year and ranked 12th.

Grapes plummeted more significantly than the industry overall in 2020, which decreased by 11.3 percent in value.

The ag industry recovery is slower than expected. “I think many of us expected Covid-19 to be gone,” Ag Commissioner Henry Gonzales said at a press conference about the report.

Gonzales spoke about the benefits of a diversified agricultural economy, noting that Monterey County is not overly reliant on a specific crop. For example, grapes account for 99 percent of annual agricultural value in Napa County, which was also affected by 2020 fires. That county’s decrease in value was 51 percent in 2020.

Monterey County’s crop report reveals there were also $35.6 million worth of lemons, $3 million in avocados, $25.8 million in onions and $13.3 million in blackberries, for example.

Organic production declined last year, both in acreage and value. It shrank from 132,809 acres to 79,255 acres, and went down by $32 million.

Prices for cannabis also plummeted last year, with the price for flower falling by 68 percent. In 2021, thanks in part to an increase in production of nearly 200,000 pounds of flower over the previous year, the gross for the county’s industry increased by $134 million, to $618.2 million.