Cannabis absent from 2021 crop report due to unclear data guidelines, insufficient survey response, industry’s “messed-up situation”

MENDOCINO Co, CA, 12/19/22 — The Mendocino County Department of Agriculture/Weights & Measures (AWM) has released its 2021 Crop Report, tracking local industries’ output and the revenue they bring in. The gross agricultural value of 2021’s commodities was $200,556,316, down about 10% from the prior year’s values; and notably, in what was to be the first year of its inclusion in the crop report, cannabis was not represented.

AWM staff shared in a memorandum to the Board of Supervisors that the county received only two responses to 1,300 surveys sent, intended to procure cannabis data. Further, AWM said that state Track and Trace (METRC) data which they’d hoped to use in the report is unavailable at the county level or through public records act requests. Staff wrote, “we do not feel at this time that presenting an estimated value of production is appropriate to include in the County’s Agricultural Crop Report, for which other crop production values are known and more accurately reported.”