Agriculture and the Economy

Some people think that farms provide little in the way of economic value to the California economy but that’s simply not true. Farms provide more to the economy than simply the value of the food and fiber that farmers grow. There are many jobs associated with agriculture that help get farm products from the field to the store and into our homes and on our tables.

Rice harvest

Think about all of the trucks that bring the broccoli or lemons in to be processed. How would we handle truckloads of lettuce if it wasn’t cleaned and packaged for the supermarket? Those trucking and processing jobs account for a huge impact on the California economy. There are also jobs related to plant health, fertilizers, quality control and safety testing, as well as high value jobs at the ports where some of the state’s farm products leave for families around the world.

In total, all of the on-farm jobs and those in associated industries contribute over $118 billion to California’s economy.