County staff presented a crop report to the Tulare County Agricultural Advisory Committee on Nov. 19 that showed 1,602,000 harvested acres in 2024 and identified 12,485 acres the county recorded as left fallow or removed in the past year because of water availability or related issues.

The presenter (county staff) said the county compiles acreage from pesticide-use reporting and permitting systems and supplemented that with a voluntary survey of growers; staff warned response rates were low — roughly 10% to 25% in different outreach efforts — and cautioned that not all fallowed acreage is directly attributable to regional water-supply trends (transcript: ‘Sigma’/Sigma effects). The presenter noted permanent plantings were reported at 448,000 acres and field crops at about 1,150,000 acres and that some year-to-year variation (staff reported a net change of roughly 5,000 acres from 2023 to 2024) appears in the dataset.

Members and staff focused on data integration challenges. Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) measure evapotranspiration and allocations, the assessor’s office maintains parcel and tax-roll records, and remote-sensing tools such as LandIQ provide supplemental land-use classification. Speakers said these systems are not currently reconciled at the parcel (APN) level, and that voluntary self-reporting means county figures likely undercount or misclassify some acreage. Staff said LandIQ and dashboard tools are being used by some GSAs and the county, and that results are being refined after initial challenges with specific crop types (for example, rotational crops and heterogeneous orchards produced inconsistent LandIQ readings in some pilots).

Committee members urged the advisory group to serve as a central county forum for quantifying Sigma-related impacts — the committee discussed coordinating with GSAs, the assessor and state partners to create a reliable, repeatable dataset. Several members asked staff to continue annual tracking, work with LandIQ and GSAs to improve accuracy, and return with reconciled figures at a future meeting.

The crop data was presented for information and discussion; no formal action was taken. Staff said they will continue the survey and annual tracking and are exploring options to improve response rates and parcel-level reconciliation with the assessor and GSAs.