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Earthmetrics Report - page 3 county in bearing apricots (3,051 acres vs. 8,836 acres in Stanislaus) and tree 1 st largest in bearing walnuts (25,944 acres vs. 24,508 acres in Tulare and 22,310 acres in Stanislaus) [California Crop and Livestock Reporting Service, June 19861 The 1982 Census of Agriculture [U S Department of Commerce, 1984' enumerated 4,475 farms (places from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year), in San Joaquin County, of which 2,733 were classified as farms with orchards (see, AnnendlX B) The land area in orchards was estimated to total 151,186 acres, an increase of 13 percent from only 134,182 acres just 4 years previously, in 1978 The size of San Joaquin County orchards is reflected in the following distribution. Orchards by acres harvested trn 4.9 acres 17 percent 5 to 24.9 acres 38 percent 25.0 to 99.9 acres 31 percent I ()() r) ^�rpr, Ar mArp 14 pprs`ont Aooendix C contains descriptive information about apricot and walnut proauction in California over the period 1946-1983 [Nuckton and Jonnston, 1965; Apricot production in the San Joaquin valley region lncreased througnout the period 1959 through 1977, largely in response to the sharp decline in acreage that was occurring in the Central Coast region, particularly in Santa Clara County where urban growth displaced many types of orchard crops in the late 1940's, the 1950's and the 1960's Sari Joaquin Valley apricot acreage is predominantly of the Tilden variety; a canning variety. Bearing acreage of apricots have been inf luence� negatively in recent years (since the mid 1970's) by several factors, including the decline in per capita consumption of apricots in all forms as a result of increased competition from other fruits, the competitive impact of increased imports of canned fruit products in response to an overvalued U.S dollar, and the closure of a mayor cooperative cannery and several other canning outlets, all of which have led to decreasing grower returns over much of the past decade. Table 1 indicates that the harvested acreage of apricots in San Joaquin County peaked at 3,255 acres in 1976 and has since been about 3,000 acres. Nonbearing acreage dropped sharply in 1985 and is likely to remain low given the rather bleak, economic outlook for canning fruit. (Apricots have a relatively short 13.3-5