15 Major Crops California Provides To The US

Every state in the U.S. produces crops, but some stand out for just how much they contribute to our diets. Of all the farming-focused states out there, none is more important than California. This massive state produces more agricultural products than any other in the country. Its contributions are so significant, in fact, that it's actually the world's fifth-largest agricultural producer, eclipsing many countries' entire worth of output. Of course, this means that California plays an especially important role in the nation's — and world's — food security. It also means that a ton of different crops grow in the state, including some fruits and veggies that may be among your favorites.

California is recognized as a major producer of the following crops, ranging from nuts to fresh salad greens. There's a good chance you eat some or even many of these foods on a daily or almost-daily basis. One thing is for sure: We should celebrate (and properly compensate) the farmers in California and beyond who work so hard to make sure we're fed reliably day after day, even in the face of difficult working conditions.

Love starting off your day with a nice bowl of cut honeydew? You're not alone. These light, refreshing melons can brighten up every meal with a subtle flavor that's hard not to love. But without the hard work of California farmers, you likely wouldn't have the option of biting into a juicy slice of melon on a particularly hot summer day. That's because California is the nation's top producer of honeydew, and much of the country's supply comes from the state. Many of these melons are grown in the Central Valley region of the state, where the hot summers give way to particularly tasty, ripe honeydew.

Although you probably think of honeydew melons as an ingredient to include in a fruit bowl, you may be surprised to learn that they're actually vegetables, not fruit. In fact, they're closely related to zucchini. If you want to lean into that more savory, vegetal profile, you should try pickling your honeydew.

Crunchy, brightly colored, and deeply earthy, carrots are among the best vegetables you could keep on hand in your fridge. They're one of the cheapest vegetables you can find at the grocery store year-round, and they don't go bad quickly, so it's easy to use up a large bag before they spoil. There are so many different sweet and savory applications for carrots, whether you just give them a simple glaze for an easy side dish or roast them and pair them with whipped ricotta.

Something you might not have known about carrots is that a ton of them are produced in California. They're one of the most important crops in the state, bringing in $1.67 billion in 2023 alone. Since carrots are quite hardy — and the state's climate is ideal for them — they can be grown year-round. The majority of carrot production is centered in Kern County in southwest California, although there are plenty of carrots grown in other areas around the state as well.

If you like fresh, crunchy green vegetables, then celery may be at the top of your list of favorites. If you're eating celery in the U.S., it was probably grown in California. In fact, 90-95% of the country's crop comes from the state. The majority of celery in California is produced in coastal regions bordering the Pacific Ocean, and the central and southern coasts are particularly notable for their celery production.

It was in the late 1800s that farmers first started experimenting with the crop in California, and it's now become an incredibly important part of the state's agricultural output. The next time you get your hands on some California celery, you can keep it simple by serving it as a crudité or snack, or you can try different, creative ways to eat celery if you want to switch up your veggie routine a bit.

Whether you love snacking on nuts or you just prefer your morning coffee with a touch of fresh nut milk, you should thank California, since it produces a variety of the nuts that contribute to Americans' diets. But the nut that California is most known for is almonds. They're an incredibly important aspect of the state's agricultural economy — they brought in $3.88 billion in 2023 and are California's fifth most profitable crop.

Not only is almond production in California important to the nation's nut supply, but much of the rest of the world also enjoys nuts from the state. It's considered the almond capital of the world, in fact, since so many almonds are produced within the state's borders. However, almond production requires a huge amount of water, representing a quarter of California's agricultural water use (which already uses 80% of the state's total water supply). Admittedly, this isn't the most sustainable crop to produce, and there may be a day when California has to pull back on its almond production to ensure its citizens have enough access to water.

It's important to get plenty of greens into your diet on a regular basis, which is why we always like to keep some leafy greens on hand in the produce drawers of our fridges. Maybe you're a kale person, or perhaps you prefer arugula. But if you're looking for a handy green vegetable that will pair well with just about anything you eat, look no further than lettuce. With its mild flavor and crunchy texture, it can add a touch of freshness to your dishes or act as the base of a flavorful salad.

But where does your lettuce come from? If you live in the U.S., your lettuce was probably grown in California. It's an important agricultural commodity in the state and brought in more money for California than even almonds in 2023. Monterey County produces a significant amount of the state's lettuce, although lettuce production is scattered around the state's agricultural regions. 

When you think of sites of wine production in the U.S., what state first comes to mind? If you're like a lot of people, it's California (although New York is certainly worthy of consideration as well). Therefore, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the state produces a significant percentage of the country's grapes. Of course, many of these grapes are produced for wine, but not all of them — the state is also known for its production of table grapes, which are what you'll find in the produce section of your local grocery store. These grapes are meant to be consumed as fresh fruit rather than turned into an alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage.

California dominates the country's grape industry, producing 99% of the U.S.'s supply of table grapes. The next time you prepare a bowl of cold, fresh grapes for a picnic or an after-lunch snack in the states, just remember that they probably came from California, and send a little extra gratitude to the farmer who picked them for you to enjoy.

Strawberries are among the most delicious fruits in the world. They can be used as a topper for sweet breakfast favorites like pancakes and yogurt bowls, or they can create a sweet counterpart for an otherwise savory salad. Of course, we also like eating them all on their own, sliced or plucked right from the pint. But where do your strawberries come from? If you're eating them in the U.S., they probably came from California — 88% of the nation's crop is grown in this single state. Strawberries are grown in a few different, distinct regions in California, including Salinas, Oxnard, and Orange County. Each season, the state produces about 1.8 billion pounds of strawberries total.

Strawberries are a summer fruit, so their peak season runs from April to August. This is definitely the best time to indulge in all of your favorite strawberry recipes. However, California produces strawberries year-round, which is why you can sometimes find them in your local grocery store's produce section even in the coldest winter months.

We've already discussed how important of a crop almonds are to California's agricultural output, but almonds aren't the only type of nut grown in the state. Lots of walnuts also come from California, and it would be reasonable to assume that the ones you're including in your next batch of brownies hail from California as well. This is because over 99% of the walnuts produced in the U.S. come from the state, specifically the Central Valley. However, California isn't just an important walnut producer in the context of the U.S. — about half of the world's walnuts are produced in California.

In fact, California may actually be producing too many walnuts. China is becoming a more relevant producer of walnuts, which creates competition for California farmers, and some experts predict that walnut production may drop within the state in light of various logistical challenges the industry now faces.

Nothing quite compares to biting into a ripe nectarine dripping with juices, especially on a hot summer day. There's something so refreshing about nectarines that compels us to pick up big bags of them whenever we stock up on produce during the warmer months. In some cases, they're even preferable to peaches, particularly if you don't like the fuzzy skin on the latter fruit. If you've eaten a nectarine lately, it likely came from California, which leads U.S. production of this iconic stone fruit. The fruit is harvested from 17,000 acres within the state and brings in $246 million per year.

Though nectarines seem fairly different from peaches, they're really just a type of peach that's treasured for their smooth skin and relatively sweeter flavor profile. The next time you eat a nectarine, take a closer look at the label to see if it did, in fact, come from California.

Tomatoes, often considered a vegetable, are actually a fruit, but they're used in an incredibly wide variety of savory applications. In fact, if you cook often, there's probably a good chance that you regularly use tomatoes, either in their raw form or after they've been processed into an ingredient like tomato paste or pasta sauce. What California is best known for in terms of its tomato production are processing tomatoes, or tomatoes that are canned or otherwise turned into ready-to-eat foods. California is responsible for the production of over 90% of processing tomatoes in the country, and it represents more than 25% of the world's processing tomatoes.

Canned tomatoes are one of our absolute favorite pantry staples to have on hand, but when was the last time you actually looked at the label before opening a can of crushed tomatoes or tomato paste? Take a closer look, and you might just find that an important part of tonight's dinner came straight from California.

Nothing makes a charcuterie board come together quite as well as some olives artistically arranged in the center of the board, offering a rich acidity in their bite-sized packages. And although olives are famously grown in various parts of the Mediterranean, the U.S. produces plenty of the crop as well. The vast majority of the country's olive production takes place in California's Central Valley, although there are pockets of olive growth outside of this specific region. A lot of this production sprang up in the 1990s, when health-conscious consumers started demanding more olive oil in their diets.

Some of the olives produced in the state are destined to become olive oil, fated to be drizzled over salads and incorporated into rich recipes. However, the state also produces whole olives for snacking purposes — these are jarred and just might adorn your next charcuterie board.

Artichokes may not be the most common vegetable on your table, but they offer a great way to add more green food into your diet. When cooked properly, they're nice and soft, offering a velvety texture that can make just about any dish feel a bit more luxurious. They're also known for their very specific, vegetal flavor that shines alongside other spring produce. Whether you buy them fresh or you prefer the jarred or canned variety for easier preparation, we support anyone who happens to have an obsession with artichokes. As it turns out, almost all of the artichoke production in the U.S. comes from California alone.

Although artichokes are produced in the state year-round, a whopping one-third of production takes place in the spring months. That means springtime is the best time of year to indulge in fresh artichokes if you want them to taste as delicious as possible.

Kiwis are the kind of fruit you either love or hate — and we definitely fall into the former camp. Kiwis have a lovely, acidic flavor profile to them, with that seedy texture that makes every bite that much more interesting. However, too many of us never even pause to think about where our kiwis came from in the first place. In many parts of the U.S., grocery store kiwis hail from California, which produces over 98% of the country's fruit. Although kiwis are grown in many areas of the state, the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys produce a large portion of the fruit.

Unless you've seen kiwi being grown before, you might be surprised to learn that they actually grow on a vine, similar to grapes. They also require bees for pollination since, unlike many other types of fruit, they cannot self-pollinate. Grab some California kiwi to make your next fruit salad extra sweet.

If you ever have to choose one ingredient to add flavor to your food, let it be garlic. We are absolute garlic enthusiasts, and it's an essential ingredient for such a wide variety of savory dishes. But because garlic is so ubiquitous in our lives, many of us don't give a second thought to how or where it's produced. Well, just like with so many other crops, you can thank California for your steady garlic supply. Farmers in the state produce a whopping 400 million pounds of garlic every year — enough for even the most avowed of garlic lovers.

Because of garlic's strong smell and flavor, it's actually somewhat immune to pests. However, garlic farmers still have to contend with diseases and other environmental pressures when it comes to garlic production. Harvesting garlic is not easy work, so we should be a little extra grateful whenever we get to incorporate a bulb into our favorite flavorful recipes.

We all know by now that California produces a plethora of nuts. In that vein, the state is also responsible for a significant portion of the country's pistachio production, with over 98% of the U.S.'s pistachio supply coming from this one state alone. Kern County is particularly well-known for its pistachio production, boasting ownership of 42% of the pistachios that come out of California.

Just like so many other nuts, though, pistachios require a ton of water to grow. Whether California will be able to continue pistachio production at its current rate long-term is up in the air — such wide-scale production of nuts, like pistachios, is arguably having a detrimental effect on the state's water supply. The takeaway? The next time you buy pistachios — especially those from California — make sure that none of them go to waste, since valuable resources were utilized in their production.