By Bob West
In July, PURE Intel™ published its first look at California farmers’ restricted-use product (RUP) applications through the end of June, which provides a great opportunity to evaluate the 2024 season vs. previous years. And, as we’ve seen with monthly PURE Intel updates published throughout this year, California’s farmers are taking advantage of great weather and much-improved access to water for a very busy 2024 season.
Increased crop protection activity can be seen in all of the high-level metrics (see table below) – the number of growers reporting RUP applications, the number of sites that have been treated, the number of applications made, and, most importantly, the number of treated acres, which speaks to the overall volume of product applied.
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
| Growers | 16,391 | 15,482 | 14,951 | 15,247 |
| Sites | 58,882 | 57,354 | 57,357 | 57,846 |
| Applications | 1,530,406 | 1,456,514 | 1,366,150 | 1,509,645 |
| Treated acres | 46,738,688 | 44,183,460 | 42,633,245 | 48,651,604 |
Much of the year-over-year growth in treated acres occurred in the first quarter when 2024 application data greatly exceeded the application figures from the rainy first quarter of 2023. In fact, 2024 treated acres were up 25 percent through Q1 2024, but that growth is down to 14% through Q2 because the California farms had such an active Q2 2023 with all of their catch-up applications. But the most recent 2024 figures have the market in position to top 100 million treated acres in 2024, which would be a first since 2020.
Not surprisingly, the growth in treated acres is fairly widespread across the state with growers reporting more treated acres in eight of the state’s top 10 ag counties.
| County | Jan-Jun 2024 Treated Acres | Change vs. Jan-Jun 2023 |
| Fresno | 7,319,879 | 18% |
| Kern | 6,519,049 | 17% |
| Tulare | 4,485,346 | 5% |
| Kings | 3,909,307 | 55% |
| Monterey | 2,795,489 | 15% |
| Madera | 2,645,993 | 22% |
| Merced | 2,234,569 | 7% |
| Imperial | 2,186,476 | -23% |
| San Joaquin | 2,007,982 | -8% |
| Stanislaus | 1,945,069 | 12% |
The health of the market is further illustrated by the fact that year-over-year growth can be found in every product category save one and that critical categories like adjuvants, fungicides and insecticides have posted double-digit growth rates through the first half.
| Product type | Jan-Jun 2024 Treated Acres | Change vs. Jan-Jun 2023 |
| Adjuvant | 13,843,776 | 16% |
| Fungicide | 12,204,370 | 11% |
| Herbicide | 10,232,170 | 4% |
| Insecticide | 7,761,047 | 26% |
| Insecticide-Miticide | 2,528,986 | 31% |
| IGR | 527,125 | 41% |
| PGR | 487,363 | 46% |
| Mating disruption | 399,909 | 11% |
| Miticide | 280,039 | 26% |
| Defoliant | 158,482 | -2% |
The last indication of the broad nature of this year’s growth is the crop-specific year-over-year figures.
| Crop Group | Jan-Jun 2024 Treated Acres | Change vs. Jan-Jun 2023 |
| Tree Nuts | 16,385,537 | 9% |
| Grapes | 8,616,932 | 26% |
| Forage/Fodder | 4,470,377 | -14% |
| Cotton | 1,958,122 | 272% |
| Grains/Cereals | 3,240,978 | 56% |
| Citrus | 2,606,820 | 0% |
| Leafy Vegetables | 2,032,967 | -4% |
| Fruiting Vegetable | 1,738,658 | 49% |
| Stone Fruit | 1,668,111 | -22% |
| Small Fruit/Berries | 1,543,952 | 17% |
| Root & Tuber Veg. | 1,123,261 | 33% |
| Cole Vegetables | 649,164 | 3% |
Bob West is the Director of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about Meister’s PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].
PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide.
About PURE Intel
Meister Media’s PURE Intel platform offers subscribers comprehensive insights into California’s specialty agriculture market by aggregating monthly crop protection product application data from approximately 20,000 California farms and providing that data through a user-friendly, web-based platform that enables subscribers to customize their data queries.