By Siddharth Kishore, Mehdi Nemati, Ariel Dinar, Cory L. Struthers, Scott MacKenzie, and Matthew S. Shugart, Giannini Foundation Of Agricultural Economics
We examine spatial and temporal trends in crop-specific land-use decisions at the parcel level by land capability class—land quality—in California’s Central Valley from 2008 to 2021. Our findings indicate that the land-use share of perennial crops has increased by 9 percentage points since 2008, though this growth varies depending on land quality. Specifically, the land-use share of perennial crops increased 11 percentage points for high-quality lands and 7 percentage points for low-quality lands. The land-use share of annual crops significantly decreased for both high-quality and low-quality land, but only marginally decreased for poor-quality land.
