Noncitrus Fruit and Tree Nut Farming (U.S.) — NAICS 11133
A rollup primer for investors, public-market and private. NAICS — the North American Industry Classification System — is the U.S. government's standard code set for industries; 11133 is the five-digit industry that bundles seven child industries covering every U.S. fruit and tree-nut crop except citrus. Core figures are federal statistics drawn from the underlying child primers; forward-looking statements are labeled as judgments.
1. Overview
NAICS 11133 is where most of America's fruit and nut money is grown. It gathers seven separate farm industries — apples, grapes, strawberries, other berries, tree nuts, mixed fruit-and-nut orchards, and an "everything-else" bucket of stone fruit and specialty crops — into one code that sits just below citrus in the classification. Together these are among the highest-value-per-acre crops in U.S. agriculture, and their combined farm-gate value runs on the order of $28 billion a year (Section 3).[1][2][3]
The seven children look different on the surface — an almond ranch, a Napa vineyard, a coastal strawberry field, a Wisconsin cranberry bog, a Georgia peach orchard — but they share one economic spine: they are perennial, real-asset, price-taker businesses. With the partial exception of strawberries (replanted often), an owner sinks large capital into land, water, and long-lived plants; waits years for a first crop; and then earns on a simple, brutal formula — yield per acre × the share that grades saleable × the price the market happens to pay. Owners also earn a second return the land itself throws off: appreciation of scarce, water-fed farmland. Labor and water are the two costs that decide who survives.
The single most important structural fact for an investor is that this is a private industry. There is no U.S.-listed pure-play apple, grape, strawberry, berry, or nut grower. Public-market exposure across all seven children runs through the same narrow set of proxies — farmland real estate investment trusts (REITs — companies that own land and lease it out), diversified fresh-produce distributors, and a few downstream food processors — in each of which the crop is a minor slice. The real ownership sits with family farms, large private grower-packer-shippers, grower cooperatives, agricultural private equity, and institutional farmland funds. Where value concentrates is not in owning dirt but in controlling the scarce assets: genetics, brands, water, cold-chain and packing scale, and export access.
This primer's distinctive job is the contrast across the seven children — which are large, which are growing or shrinking, who owns them, and how their economics differ — before treating the level as a whole.
2. What's inside — the seven children and how they differ
The table below compares the children on relative size, direction of travel, ownership character, and the (always indirect) public way in. Read the shares as approximate: they draw on different recent crop years (grapes, tree nuts, and berries are 2024; apples and strawberries are 2025), the crops don't map one-to-one onto the codes, and one child (combination farming) is not separately sized at all.[1][2][3][4]
| Child industry (code) | ~Share of level's farm-gate value | Direction of travel | Geographic center | Who owns it | Public way in (all indirect) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tree Nut Farming (111335) | ~$9.4B · ~34% | Cyclical, mixed — almonds recovering off a 2022 price crash and still amply supplied; pistachios structurally strong | California Central Valley (almonds, pistachios, walnuts); pecans in the South/Southwest; hazelnuts in Oregon | Private giant (The Wonderful Company), grower co-op (Blue Diamond), institutional farmland; fragmented field, concentrated handlers | Farmland REITs (LAND, FPI); nut processor John B. Sanfilippo & Son (JBSS) |
| Grape Vineyards (111332) | ~$6.19B · ~22% | Contracting — falling wine demand, a persistent glut, and tens of thousands of acres of vines being pulled | California ~91% of value; then Washington, New York, Oregon | ~28,000 family growers plus wine estates; private equity entering the premium tier; buyers (Gallo, The Wine Group) concentrated | Micro-cap wineries (WVVI, CWGL); farmland REITs; diversified drinks/luxury (STZ, TWE, LVMH) |
| Strawberry Farming (111333) | ~$4.4B · ~16% | Growing — per-capita fresh consumption up ~45% in a decade; value rising even as prices stay volatile | California ~89%; Florida the winter #2 | Branded-genetics model led by Driscoll's; large private grower-shippers; ~160 big farms hold ~64% of acreage | Diversified produce (DOLE, DMC); farmland REITs |
| Other Noncitrus Fruit (111339) | ~$2.9B+ · ~10% | Barbell/mixed — avocados, dates, and olive-oil up; canning peaches and pears in decline | California (peaches, avocados ~90%, olives, dates); Pacific NW (cherries, pears) | Family orchards and co-ops (Sunsweet, Bard Valley); private agribusiness (Wonderful/POM) | Avocado/tropical distributors (AVO, FDP, DOLE, LMNR); farmland REITs |
| Apple Orchards (111331) | ~$2.82B · ~10% | Soft near-term — oversupply; value slipped from $3.11B (2023) to $2.82B (2025) | Washington ~two-thirds of production; then New York, Michigan | 27,463 farms, barbell-shaped; large private grower-packer-shippers and co-ops (Stemilt, Tree Top); consolidating | Farmland REITs; processors (Seneca SENEA, Keurig Dr Pepper KDP via Mott's) |
| Berry, except Strawberry (111334) | ~$2.0B · ~7% | Under price pressure — demand growing but import supply (Peru, Mexico) growing faster | Blueberries (WA/OR/GA; wild in Maine); cranberries (Wisconsin ~60%) | Cranberry co-op (Ocean Spray, ~70% of U.S. crop); Driscoll's genetics; ag private equity buying scale | Diversified produce (DOLE, FDP); farmland REITs |
| Fruit & Tree Nut Combination (111336) | Not separately sized (folded into the others) | Cyclical downturn forcing land turnover | California-weighted | Diversified orchards; The Wonderful Company (~250,000 acres); institutional funds (Nuveen/TIAA) | Farmland REITs (LAND, FPI); diversified growers |
What the contrast shows:
- Size is lopsided. Two children — tree nuts and grapes — are more than half the level's value between them. Add strawberries and the top three are roughly seven of every ten dollars.[1][2]
- They are not all moving the same way. Grapes are in an outright, deliberate contraction (vine removals);[5] apples and much of the berry and almond world are working through oversupply; strawberries, pistachios, avocados, and dates are the brighter demand stories. A single "fruit and nut" thesis would blur genuinely opposite trajectories.
- Geography splits the level in two. California is the center of gravity for nearly everything — grapes (~91%), strawberries (~89%), essentially all almonds/pistachios/walnuts, ~90% of avocados, most olives and dates.[1] The big exceptions are apples (Washington) and cranberries (Wisconsin) — which is why California water policy is an industry-defining risk for most of these crops but not all (Section 7).
- Ownership rhymes but differs in the details. Every child is fragmented at the farm and concentrated in the middle, but what sits in the middle varies: a grower cooperative anchors nuts (Blue Diamond) and cranberries (Ocean Spray); a genetics-and-brand licensor anchors strawberries and berries (Driscoll's); a vertically integrated private giant anchors nuts and pomegranates (The Wonderful Company); wine estates and private equity anchor grapes; global distributors anchor avocados and tropical fruit (Mission Produce, Dole, Fresh Del Monte).[6][7][8][9][10]
3. How big it is — the level's rollup
Our ingested federal file for NAICS 11133 carries no statistics at all — no revenue, farm count, acreage, employment, or payroll for this exact node. We say so plainly rather than invent a figure. Every number below therefore comes from USDA (the U.S. Department of Agriculture) via the child primers, and is cited as such; the only Histometrics-ingested federal figures at any level here are the SBA (U.S. Small Business Administration) small-business size standards for the seven child codes (Section 5).
The undercount caveat, which applies to the whole level. The federal business statistics most industries are measured by — the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns, Economic Census, Statistics of U.S. Businesses, and Nonemployer Statistics — exclude crop production (NAICS 111) by design, and also omit self-employed and no-employee operators.[11] So there is no standard business-registry count of firms, employment, or payroll for 11133, and a missing number must never be read as zero. The authoritative source is instead USDA's Census of Agriculture and its NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Service) crop surveys. Because most operators in every child are small and family-run — and thousands are sub-commercial — even USDA's counts undercount the informal tail, while a simple farm count underweights the handful of large private growers where the dollars concentrate.
A rollup value figure (USDA, approximate). Summing the children's most recent farm-gate crop values lands near $28 billion a year: tree nuts ~$9.4 billion (2024), grapes ~$6.19 billion (2024), strawberries ~$4.4 billion (2025), apples ~$2.82 billion (2025), the 111339 specialty crops ~$2.9 billion or more (2024), and berries other than strawberry ~$2.0 billion (2024).[1][2][3] This is an order-of-magnitude rollup, not a clean audited total — the years differ and combination farming (111336) is not separately measured — but it is consistent with USDA/NASS reporting of roughly $18.9 billion for its 21 tracked noncitrus fruit crops plus roughly $9.4 billion in tree nuts in 2024.[3]
Structural context from the 2022 Census of Agriculture. For the broader neighborhood — fruit, tree nut, and berry farming (which also includes citrus, so it is wider than 11133) — USDA counted 110,821 farms on 6.56 million acres with $34.2 billion in sales (up 20% since 2017), 93% of them family farms.[4] Three states — California, Washington, Florida — made 83% of those sales, with California alone about $23.1 billion (~68%).[4] Most operators are small (78% had under $100,000 in sales-plus-payments; only 6% cleared $1 million), yet the few large operations produce most of the output — the "read the count and the dollars together" pattern that recurs in every child.[4]
4. Investable universe — where value concentrates across the children
There is no listed pure-play grower for any of the seven crops. But the public proxies are strikingly consistent across the level, and value concentrates in the same three places regardless of crop.
The one public thread that touches all seven: farmland REITs. Gladstone Land (Nasdaq: LAND) and Farmland Partners (NYSE: FPI) own orchard and vineyard land — apples, grapes, strawberries/berries, almonds, pistachios, cherries, olives, figs — leased to operators, and collect rent plus land appreciation and (for LAND) banked California water.[12] They are the cleanest listed way to own the asset under this industry without taking direct crop-price risk, but each crop is a small slice of a diversified portfolio; treat them as farmland plays, not fruit bets.
Demand-side and downstream proxies, by child:
- Diversified fresh-produce distributors — Dole (NYSE: DOLE), Del Monte Corporation (NYSE: DMC, formerly Fresh Del Monte / FDP), and Mission Produce (Nasdaq: AVO) — carry berry, strawberry, and (heavily) avocado/tropical exposure, mostly sourced globally.[8][9][10]
- Processors — Seneca Foods (Nasdaq: SENEA/SENEB) and Keurig Dr Pepper (Nasdaq: KDP, via Mott's) for apples; John B. Sanfilippo & Son (Nasdaq: JBSS) for nuts — trade on branded/processing economics, not orchard prices.[13][14]
- Micro-cap wineries — Willamette Valley Vineyards (Nasdaq: WVVI) and Crimson Wine Group (OTC: CWGL) — are the closest listed grape-grower proxies, but trade on wine-brand economics and are tiny and illiquid.[15]
- Diversified drinks/luxury — Constellation Brands (STZ), Treasury Wine Estates (TWE), LVMH — own vineyards immaterial to their overall economics.[15]
Where the real ownership — and the margin — sits (private/cooperative):
- Genetics and brand licensors: Driscoll's (private) develops proprietary berry varieties and coordinates independent growers, touching roughly a third of the U.S. berry market — the highest-margin position in strawberries and berries.[7]
- Grower cooperatives: Blue Diamond (~3,000 almond growers), Ocean Spray (~700 cranberry farmers, ~70% of U.S. cranberries), plus Tree Top (apples), Sunsweet (prunes), and Sunkist-style marketing co-ops.[6][7]
- Vertically integrated private giants: The Wonderful Company (Resnick family) — the world's largest almond and pistachio grower-processor, ~250,000 acres, major water assets, and brands (Wonderful Pistachios, POM, Halos).[16]
- Large private grower-packer-shippers: Stemilt, Legendary Fruit, CMI, Zirkle, Gebbers (apples/cherries); California Giant, Well-Pict, Reiter, Wish Farms, Naturipe (strawberries/berries); Setton, Harris Woolf (nuts); HMC Farms, Oasis Date (other noncitrus).
- Institutional farmland managers: Nuveen Natural Capital (TIAA, ~$12.4 billion in farmland), Manulife/Hancock, and specialist funds that buy orchards and lease them back — separating land ownership from farming.[17]
- Agricultural private equity: Butterfly Equity (took Duckhorn wine private, $1.95 billion), Paine Schwartz (Costa Group), PSP Investments (Hortifrut) — active consolidators.[15][7]
The practical takeaway: across all seven children, the profit pool concentrates at the genetics, brand, packing/cold-chain, water, and marketing layers — not in raw acreage. Public investors get a diluted, land-or-processing view; capturing the crops' actual economics is a private, operator's game.
5. How the money works
The seven children run on one shared economic logic, with a few crop-specific twists.
Perennial, capital-heavy, long-payback. Except for strawberries (which are replanted frequently but still cost ~$113,000/acre/year to grow and sell on premium coastal ground),[18] these are permanent plantings. Trees and vines cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per acre to establish, take 3–7 years to reach full bearing (pistachios ~10–12), then produce for two to three decades.[19] Capital is sunk, illiquid, and cannot be rotated out of when prices fall — the source of the industry's recurring boom-and-bust.
The revenue formula is the same everywhere: bearing acres × yield per acre × packout (the share that grades saleable) × realized price. Packout often matters more than raw yield — a big crop that grades poorly, from hail, sunburn, bruising, or storage loss, earns little. Fresh fruit typically earns two to three times what processing fruit does, so channel mix is decisive.[1]
The central margin story: premium/branded versus commodity. In every child, the money is in differentiation — Honeycrisp and Cosmic Crisp apples over commodity Red Delicious;[20] Napa Cabernet ($8,000+/ton) over bulk Central Valley grapes ($500);[15] Driscoll's-branded berries over generic; premium eating apples and organic over conventional. Commodity, undifferentiated fruit is chronically exposed to oversupply.
Labor is the dominant cost across the level. USDA's ERS (Economic Research Service) reports that wages plus contract labor run about 40% of production expenses for fruit and tree-nut farms — the highest labor share of any farm type, versus 12% for all farms — because fresh fruit is hand-picked and hand-thinned.[21] Most large growers depend on the federal H-2A seasonal-guestworker visa, whose mandated AEWR (Adverse Effect Wage Rate, set by the U.S. Department of Labor) has risen sharply and structurally.[21]
Water is a fixed cost you cannot skip. Trees and vines must be watered every year or they die, so demand is inelastic; in California, where most of the level's value is grown, groundwater is being tightened (Section 7), and reliable water is the true scarce asset that separates $18,000–$25,000/acre orchard land from $4,000–$15,000 groundwater-only land.[16]
Two profit streams: crop margin and land. Operators earn the harvest margin; landowners earn rent plus land and water appreciation. That land-return component is why farmland REITs and institutional funds invest here even when crop margins are thin.
The metrics that matter, whichever crop: bearing acres and plant age, yield per acre, packout and shrink, realized price by variety and channel, fresh-versus-processing mix, labor cost per packed unit, water security, replanting needs, customer concentration, and cash flow after orchard capital spending.
6. Demand drivers
- Health, snacking, and "better-for-you" eating underpin long-run demand — berries as antioxidant "superfoods," nuts riding the protein/plant-based wave (plus almond "milk"), avocados on "good fats," premium eating apples. But the tailwind is uneven: per-capita fresh-strawberry use rose ~45% in a decade and avocado consumption multiplied, while USDA found total U.S. per-capita fruit availability actually declined 14% from 2003 to 2021.[3][22] Growth is category-specific, not automatic.
- Year-round availability, filled by imports — the defining double-edged force. Counter-seasonal supply from Mexico, Peru, Chile, and elsewhere turned seasonal treats into 52-week staples (expanding the category) while competing directly with domestic growers (pressuring prices). Imports supplied 59% of U.S. fresh-fruit availability in 2023, up from 50% in 2007; Peru is now the world's top blueberry exporter and Mexico supplies ~98% of U.S. strawberry imports.[23][24]
- Exports are strategic, especially for nuts. The U.S. exports well over half of its almonds and pistachios (roughly 70%+ of almonds, ~75% of pistachios) and about a fifth of its fresh apples; Northwest cherries and pears lean heavily on Asian markets.[25] Foreign demand helps set the domestic price — which makes trade policy a demand lever, not only a risk (Section 7).
- Premiumization and variety innovation — club/managed apple varieties, proprietary berry genetics, Medjool dates, premium olive oil — expand demand and pricing power, though licensing costs and eventual overplanting erode a variety's premium over time.
7. Regulation
The regulatory stack is broadly common across the seven children, with crop-specific overlays.
- Water — the binding constraint for most of the level. California's SGMA (Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, 2014) is progressively curtailing Central Valley groundwater pumping; the Public Policy Institute of California estimates 500,000+ acres of farmland fallowed by 2040, falling disproportionately on perennial crops.[26] Because California grows the bulk of the level's value, SGMA is arguably the single most important structural force on 11133 — but it barely touches Washington apples or Wisconsin cranberries.
- Labor / immigration — the biggest cost lever. The DOL H-2A program governs the seasonal workforce (recruitment, wages, housing, transportation), and its AEWR wage floor rises annually; some states (California, Washington, New York) add farmworker overtime.[21]
- Food safety. The FDA's (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) Produce Safety Rule sets on-farm standards for water, worker hygiene, and handling; the 2024 pre-harvest agricultural-water rule adds risk assessments.[27]
- Pesticides. The EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) registers crop chemistries under FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) and sets residue tolerances; loss of key chemistries (and, for strawberries, soil-fumigant phaseouts) raises costs.[28]
- Marketing orders and check-offs (USDA AMS — Agricultural Marketing Service). Federal orders fund research and promotion and set quality rules across the level: California almonds (Order 981), pistachios (983), and walnuts (984); the highbush blueberry check-off; peach, pear, olive, date, and tart-cherry orders (tart cherries can impose volume controls). Notably, the long-standing cranberry marketing order was terminated in 2024, removing a supply-management backstop.[29]
- Grapes' own overlay: the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) defines AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) — the appellations that give vineyard land its premium — and regulates estate wineries.[15]
- Fair dealing and organic: the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) governs fair trading in fresh produce; USDA's National Organic Program controls the "USDA Organic" label.[29]
- Trade and tariffs. Retaliation directly hits export income. 2025 tariff actions were estimated to put over $3 billion of nut and fruit export value at risk (pistachios alone ~$384 million), and apple, cherry, and pear export markets are similarly exposed.[30]
8. Consolidation
The level's competitive structure is consistent: fragmented in the field, concentrated in the middle. Thousands of small growers produce the fruit, but a smaller set of players controls the scarce, scalable control points — genetics, brands, packing and cold-chain, marketing, and export compliance — where durable advantage and most of the margin live.
- Fewer, bigger, more integrated operators. Every child is consolidating toward large grower-packer-shipper-marketers and vertically integrated platforms — The Wonderful Company in nuts (~250,000 acres), Legendary Fruit's proposed absorption of Gebbers in apples, Mission Produce's 2026 acquisition of Calavo in avocados.[16][10]
- Genetics and cooperatives as moats. Proprietary/club varieties (Driscoll's berries, managed apples) and grower cooperatives (Blue Diamond, Ocean Spray) aggregate supply and control price without owning every farm.[6][7]
- Institutional and private-equity capital. Farmland funds (Nuveen/TIAA, Manulife/Hancock, Gladstone) are steadily separating land ownership from farming, while ag private equity buys scale and takes players private (Duckhorn, Costa, Hortifrut).[15][17]
- Water and downturn as consolidation engines. SGMA and the current price downturn are pushing water-short and thinly capitalized growers out, concentrating acreage among well-capitalized owners with secure water — most visibly in almonds and grapes, where land is actively changing hands and orchards/vines are being pulled.[5][26]
9. Risks
- Water / SGMA — the existential structural risk for the California-heavy majority of the level; pumping cuts can strand orchards and slash land values.[26]
- Labor — rising H-2A/AEWR wages, workforce availability, and housing mandates squeeze the biggest cost line across every child.[21]
- Commodity price cycles and oversupply — because planting decisions bear fruit years later, the industry chronically over- or under-plants; grapes, apples, blueberries, and almonds are all working through gluts now.[5][2]
- Imports — year-round import supply (Peru blueberries, Mexico avocados/strawberries) expands the category but pressures domestic prices.[23][24]
- Trade and tariff retaliation — heavy export dependence (nuts especially) makes trade policy a swing factor worth billions.[30]
- Weather and climate — frost at bloom, hail, heat/sunburn, drought, wildfire smoke, and declining winter "chill hours" can slash a crop or its packout.
- Perishability and buyer concentration — fresh fruit must sell fast, and concentrated retail/marketer buyers hold pricing power; growers tied to a single co-op or genetics licensor carry counterparty risk.
- Capital intensity and illiquidity — high establishment costs, long paybacks, and slow-selling land make these unforgiving assets when a poor crop and weak prices hit alongside high interest rates.
- Geographic concentration — California's dominance concentrates water, labor, and climate risk in one state; Washington apples and Wisconsin cranberries carry their own single-region exposures.
- Information/private-company risk — because business statistics omit crop farming, market size, share, and private valuations are genuinely hard to verify; succession and key-person risk run through the family-owned base.
10. How to invest & outlook
Public routes (all indirect, and consistent across the level):
- Farmland REITs — Gladstone Land (LAND), Farmland Partners (FPI) — the one listed handle that spans all seven children: own leased orchard/vineyard land and water, collect rent plus appreciation. A land-and-water play, not a crop bet.[12]
- Diversified produce and processors — DOLE, DMC, Mission Produce (AVO) for berry/strawberry/avocado demand; JBSS for nuts; Seneca and KDP for apple processing; WVVI/CWGL for grapes. In each, the crop is a minor line; reserve valuation, dividend, and multiple analysis for a security-level review.[8][9][10][13][14][15]
- There is no ETF or listed company that isolates any of these crops' farming economics.
Private routes (where the industry actually is): direct orchard/vineyard/land acquisition or leasing; equity in grower-packer-shipper platforms; farmland funds and institutional managers (Nuveen, Manulife); agricultural private equity and credit; grower-cooperative membership (available only by farming); and adjacent genetics, packing, cold-chain, water, and mechanization businesses. Underwrite title and water rights first, then bearing acreage and plant age, yield and packout history, variety mix, labor sourcing, customer contracts, insurance, debt service under weak-price scenarios, and an exit value grounded in both operating cash flow and land value.
Outlook (forward-looking judgment). The level is a barbell. Several large segments — grapes, apples, blueberries, and (to a degree) almonds — are working through oversupply, with commodity-grade and water-short growers hit hardest.[5][2] Meanwhile strawberries, pistachios, avocados, and dates are the brighter demand stories. The durable long-run winners in every child look the same: operators and landowners with secure water, scale and mechanization, proprietary genetics or brands, efficient packing and cold chain, and access to premium and export channels. The losers are small, water-short, undifferentiated, commodity-grade orchards. Two forces dominate the next decade: water (SGMA), which threatens individual California growers but, by tightening supply, can support prices and the value of well-watered land; and labor cost inflation, which is structural and favors scale and automation. Trade policy is the live wildcard that can move a heavily export-dependent industry in either direction in a single season. For most investors this remains a private-markets and farmland industry — the public market offers only a diluted, secondhand view of it, and acreage alone is never a sufficient proxy for value.
Sources
- USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Noncitrus Fruits and Nuts 2025 Summary (apple, strawberry, and related area/production/value; fresh vs. processing splits), Feb.–May 2026. https://esmis.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/release-files/795891/ncit0526.pdf
- USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, Noncitrus Fruits and Nuts 2024 Summary (grape ~$6.19B; tree nut ~$9.4B; blueberry/cranberry/raspberry values; ~21 noncitrus crops), May 2025. https://esmis.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/release-files/zs25x846c/mc87rn20c/w37656321/ncit0525.pdf
- Capital Press (reporting USDA NASS), U.S. tree nuts, noncitrus fruits see sweet value gains in 2024 (~$18.9B noncitrus fruit + ~$9.4B tree nuts; peaches/cherries/avocados/pears/dates values), 2025. https://capitalpress.com/2025/05/08/u-s-tree-nuts-noncitrus-fruits-see-sweet-value-gains-in-2024/
- USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2022 Census of Agriculture Highlights: Fruit, Tree Nut, and Berry Production (ACH22-15) (110,821 farms; 6.56M acres; $34.2B sales; 93% family; California ~68%; hired labor ~26% of expenses), Aug. 2024. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2024/Census22_HL_FruitNutBerry.pdf
- Press Democrat / California Farm Bureau, California vine removals and the wine-market reset (30% of 2025 wine grapes unsold; 38,000+ acres removed; ~40,000 more targeted), 2025. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/12/04/wine-expo-industry-forecast-2025/
- Blue Diamond Growers, About Our Cooperative (~3,000 grower-members); Tree Top, About (grower-owned apple co-op). https://bluediamondgrowers.com/about/
- Driscoll's, About (proprietary genetics; ~1/3 of U.S. berry market); Ocean Spray, Our Farmers (~700 farmers; ~70% of U.S. cranberries); Butterfly Equity / PSP Investments / Paine Schwartz take-private deals. https://www.driscolls.com/about; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Spray_(cooperative)
- Dole plc, 2024 Annual Report (Form 10-K), 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1857475/000185747525000008/dole-20241231.htm
- Del Monte Corporation (formerly Fresh Del Monte Produce), Form 10-K and FDP→DMC renaming (effective June 29, 2026). https://freshdelmonte.com/news/fresh-del-monte-produce-inc-announces-name-change-to-del-monte-corporation-and-nyse-ticker-symbol-change-to-dmc/
- Mission Produce, Inc., Completes Acquisition of Calavo Growers (~$430M, closed May 28, 2026), Form 8-K, 2026. https://investors.missionproduce.com/news-releases/
- U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns / SUSB / Nonemployer Statistics — methodology (crop production, nonemployers, and self-employed excluded from business programs), 2026. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp/technical-documentation/methodology.html
- Gladstone Land Corporation (LAND), Fourth Quarter and Year-Ended 2025 Results / Form 10-K (~99,000 acres, 144 farms, ~55,500 acre-feet CA water); Farmland Partners Inc. (FPI), Form 10-K (~70,000 acres). https://www.gladstonefarms.com/investors/; https://farmlandpartners.com/
- Seneca Foods Corp. (SENEA/SENEB), Form 10-K FY2025 (applesauce/fruit processing); Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP, Mott's). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/88948/000143774925020197/senea20250331_10k.htm
- John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. (JBSS), 2025 Form 10-K (nut processor/marketer; Fisher, Orchard Valley Harvest). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/880117/000095017025110463/jbss-20250626.htm
- Willamette Valley Vineyards (WVVI) and Crimson Wine Group (CWGL) Form 10-Ks; Constellation Brands (STZ) U.S. wine exit; Butterfly Equity, $1.95B Duckhorn take-private (>2,200 acres); TTB, American Viticultural Areas (27 CFR Part 9). https://www.ttb.gov/regulated-commodities/beverage-alcohol/wine/american-viticultural-area-ava
- The Wonderful Company / Wonderful Pistachios & Almonds, Who We Are (~250,000 acres of almonds/pistachios; Kern Water Bank stake; POM, Halos); California orchard-land vs. water-price spread. https://www.wonderful.com/who-we-are/
- Nuveen Natural Capital (a TIAA company), Farmland (~$12.4B farmland AUM; California orchard exposure); Manulife/Hancock and specialist funds. https://www.nuveen.com/global/investment-capabilities/real-assets/farmland
- University of California ANR / UC Davis, Sample Costs to Produce and Harvest Strawberries — Central Coast (~$113,000/acre/year), March 2024. https://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/2024/04/04/2024Strawberry-FULL-FINAL-March2024.pdf
- UC ANR and Oregon State University cost studies (orchard/vineyard establishment costs; 3–7 years to full bearing; pistachios ~10–12 years). https://ucanr.edu/site/california-pistachio-research/climate-cultivars
- Cosmic Crisp (WSU-bred managed variety) and Honeycrisp (premium/club variety context). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Crisp
- USDA Economic Research Service, Farm Labor (wages + contract labor ~40% of fruit/tree-nut production expenses vs. 12% all farms); U.S. Department of Labor, H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program (AEWR). https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor; https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/foreign-labor/programs/h-2a
- USDA Economic Research Service, Peeling Open U.S. Fruit Consumption Trends (total per-capita fruit availability −14%, 2003–2021), Feb. 2025. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2025/february/peeling-open-us-fruit-consumption-trends
- USDA Economic Research Service, U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Supplies Continue to Rely on Imports (imports 50% in 2007 → 59% in 2023), 2025. https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=110713
- IFPRI, Peru's rapid rise as the world's leading blueberry exporter, 2024; USDA ERS, Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook (Mexico ~98% of U.S. strawberry imports). https://www.ifpri.org/blog/perus-rapid-rise-as-the-worlds-leading-blueberry-exporter/
- USDA Foreign Agricultural Service / ERS, Tree Nuts: World Markets and Trade and export-share analyses (almonds ~70%+ exported; pistachios ~75%; apples ~a fifth of fresh crop). https://www.fas.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/TreeNuts.pdf
- Public Policy Institute of California / California DWR, Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) (500,000+ acres fallowed by 2040; per-acre pumping-cost impacts). https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Groundwater-Management/SGMA-Groundwater-Management
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FSMA Final Rule on Produce Safety and 2024 pre-harvest agricultural-water rule. https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/fsma-final-rule-produce-safety
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Pesticide Registration (FIFRA / FFDCA); strawberry soil-fumigant phaseouts. https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration
- USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, Federal Marketing Orders (almonds 981, pistachios 983, walnuts 984; blueberry check-off; cranberry order terminated 2024; peach/pear/olive/date/tart-cherry orders), PACA, and National Organic Program. https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/moa
- UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, New tariffs could cost U.S. nut and fruit industries over $3 billion (pistachios ~$384M at risk), 2025. https://ucanr.edu/blog/anr-news-releases/article/new-tariffs-could-cost-us-nut-and-fruit-industries-over-3-billion