The numbers are in for what U.S. agricultural commodities generated during 2024.
On Sept 3, the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) updated its extensive Farm Income and Wealth Statistics dashboard to include the cash receipts for all agricultural commodities across the country for 2024.
Cash receipts for all fruit, vegetable and nut commodities — excluding categories noted as being for processing rather than fresh consumption — in 2024 stood at $58.33 billion, up 4.72% from 2023. This does include some commodity categories, which did not distinguish between processing or fresh use. Potatoes were one such example, where potatoes for fresh consumption versus chipping or other processing uses were not broken out.
The top 10 produce commodities by cash receipts in 2024 were the same as in 2023, though the individual rankings shifted somewhat. The top fresh produce commodities with their 2024 cash receipts were:
- Grapes (all grapes, including wine, table, and raisin), $6.19 billion
- Almonds, $5.66 billion
- Potatoes (all potatoes, including chipping, etc.), $4.99 billion
- Lettuce (all lettuce, including head, leaf, and romaine), $4.6 billion
- Strawberries, $3.997 billion
- Apples (for all purposes), $2.9 billion
- Pistachios, $2.05 billion
- Onions, $2.004 billion
- Carrots (only fresh, excluding processing), $1.67 billion
- Blueberries, $1.196 billion
Changing Rank
While the top 10 produce commodities stayed the same in 2024 compared with 2023, the rankings changed from year to year.
In 2024, almonds saw the second-largest cash receipts for fresh produce. The year before, almonds ranked fourth with $4.045 billion, meaning almonds gained $1.617 billion or almost 40% in one year.
According to the 2025 California Almond Forecast report, released in May 2025, there was no appreciable change in almond acres in California between 2023 and 2024. However, yield per acre increased 200 lbs. to 1,980 lbs per acre in 2024, for a total production of 2.73 billion pounds. Added to this, the price per pound jumped 24.42% from 2023 to 2024 to $2.14.
Almonds shifting to second place pushed down 2023’s second- and third-ranked commodities — potatoes and lettuce, respectively — to the third and fourth position in 2024. Receipts for all potatoes in 2024 gained $99 million, or 2.02%, compared with 2023, while receipts for all lettuce declined by $179 million or 3.75%.
While all grapes remained at the top of the cash receipts ranking for produce, the commodity shed significant value in 2024 compared with 2023, down $643 million, or 9.41%. Similarly, while pistachios maintained their position as seventh-highest produce commodity, cash receipts declined by $740 million or 26.57%, the largest raw and percentage decline seen on the top 10 list for produce.
Expectations for 2025
While overall inflation-adjusted cash receipts are forecast by ERS to grow $10.9 billion (2.1%) from 2024 to $535.2 billion in 2025 for all agricultural commodities, those gains are expected from animal-based commodities.
Overall crop cash receipts are expected to decline $12.3 billion (4.9%) in 2025 compared with 2024. Cash receipts for the vegetable and melon subcategory are expected to fall by a half billion (2.1%) in 2025, but are forecast to increase $2 billion (6.5%) for the fruits and nuts subcategory.
For almonds specifically, the recent May report projected a 2025 almond crop of 2.8 billion pounds, up slightly from the 2024 crop. A later estimate released in July increased that to 3 billion pounds, which initially dropped prices significantly, but they have since recovered “closer to multi-year highs.”
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