Comparison of Agriculture to Other Economic Sectors

Agriculture as a percentage of overall economic activity varies widely between Sierra counties, ranging from more than 32 percent of the economy in Modoc County to no measurable economic activity at all in Alpine County. Table 1 below shows each Sierra county and the percentage of economic value that is contributed by (1) agriculture; (2) forestry, fishing, and support; (3) entertainment (defined as arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services) and (4) construction.

Geographically we have divided the SOSA region into five distinctive subregions. But in order to better understand the economic significance of agriculture within the entire SOSA study area required dividing the region into two groups: counties that extend into the Central Valley and counties that lie primarily within the Sierra range.

Note: The economic statistics were only available by full county and not by zip code, so we were unable to break out the Sierra portions from the Central Valley portions of large counties such as Fresno, Kern, Tulare, and Madera. The counties were split in the following manner:

• Core Sierra: These county boundaries and/or agricultural activities are largely or entirely within the Sierra Nevada. The Core Sierra counties include: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Inyo, Lassen, Mariposa, Modoc, Mono, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Tehama, Tuolumne, Yuba, and three counties in western Nevada, including Carson City, Douglas, and Washoe. These counties comprise the alpine areas within the Sierra-Nevada region, as well as selected counties in Western Nevada.

• Central Valley: In these counties most of the agricultural activity takes place in the Central Valley, not the Sierra. The Central Valley counties include: Madera, Fresno, Tulare, and Kern. These counties have markedly high levels of agricultural production because part of their lands lie within the Central Valley. The map below outlines the State of Sierra Agriculture boundary, subregions, and counties covered in this analysis.

Download Table 1. Counties in SOSA Region -- Ranked by total value of gross agricultural product

Download Table 2. Counties in SOSA Region -- Economic Breakdown by Industry

The overall structure of the Sierra economy is shown in Table 2 above. For the Core Sierra counties, based mostly within the higher-elevation areas of the Sierra Nevada, agriculture represents 1.3 percent of the economic activity, while forestry contributes 0.5 percent. The contribution of entertain¬ment, recreation, and tourism is 7.6 percent of the overall economy. The chief contributors to the Core Sierra counties economies are government, manufacturing, and construction.

For the Central Valley counties of the Sierra, agriculture represents 10.9 percent of economic activity, while forestry contributes another 2.8 percent. As an economic indicator, entertainment, recreation, and tourism sectors in the Central Valley are significantly lower than in the Core Sierra. The Central Valley’s chief economic contributors are manufacturing, government, and agriculture.

In the Core Sierra counties, the service sector dominates the economy with well over 30 percent of the economy. Construction, manufacturing, trade, and real estate/tourism sectors are important economic engines, each accounting for more than 10 percent of the economy. Of course, this varies considerably by county. In the Central Valley counties, the economy is also dominated by the service sector, which accounts for slightly more than 30 percent of the economy. While the manufacturing and agriculture sectors each account for more than 10 percent of the economy. Construction, real estate, and tourism account for a significantly smaller percentage of the economy in Central Valley counties than the Core Sierra counties.

In terms of jobs, the agricultural sector generates roughly 1.9 percent of the jobs in the Core Sierra counties and forestry generates 0.7 percent.

Note: A few individual counties, such as Modoc (15%) and Tehama (11%) do have higher percentages of agricultural jobs, but the overall averages in the region are much lower. In the Central Valley group of counties, agricultural employment is greater than eight percent on average, but much of this employment is not in the Sierra portion of the counties. Jobs in entertainment are much higher in the Sierra counties, averaging over 12 percent of total employment compared to just over seven percent in the Central Valley counties.


Download Table 3. Sierra Counties -- Ranked by number of agricultural jobs

These statistics may understate the overall value of agriculture to the counties in our study. If we calculate the direct and indirect economic contribution of agriculture in these counties, we would see that the total contribution is higher by a factor of 2.0-2.5. For example, we have used the IMPLAN data and calculated a total economic contribution (direct and indirect) of over $45.6 million in 2002, while the direct economic contribution was some $20.0 million – a multiplier of 2.28.

The comparative statistics shown in Table 2 give the clearest picture of the relative economic contribution of agriculture within the Sierra Nevada. Agriculture makes up 11 percent of the economy in the Central Valley counties and only 1.3 percent in Core Sierra counties. The undeniable conclusion gleaned from these tables is that the commodity-based or straight economic contribution of agriculture is quite small, especially in the Core Sierra counties. For the region overall, agriculture accounts for only 6.4 percent of economic activity, and this figure is higher than reality because it includes the contribution of those counties with large portions of their agricultural production located in the Central Valley.