The drought, and increasing production costs impacted Santa Barbara County’s agricultural industry, with just released figures show the overall crop value dropping slightly in 2015. Santa Barbara County’s annual agricultural report shows 2015 was a slightly off year for strawberries, avocados, and wine grapes, but good for blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries.
Production totaled $1.48 billion dollars. That’s down about 11 million dollars, or seven tenths of a percent from 2014.
Strawberries are the number one crop in the county by a huge margin, at $438 million dollars, but that’s about $26 million off from the year before. Avocados were hit by a reduction in production due to the drought, as well as by a drop in prices. And, wine grapes had a rough year. The drought led to low production levels, and a nearly $50 million dollar drop in production value.
Other areas did show improvement, like cattle prices, and berries, which offset some of the losses from the hard hit crops.
