Two Decades of Change: Evolving Costs of Regulatory Compliance in the Produce Industry

Rising costs of regulation are an increasing concern for California growers. An initial study of regulatory costs in California agriculture was conducted in 2006, as means to compare California’s regulatory environment to other competing states. Industry groups in the Salinas Valley contacted Cal Poly to update the original study in 2018 as new state and federal laws imposed significantly higher regulatory burdens on growers, specifically with respect to food safety, water quality, labor wages, air quality and worker health and safety. This report updates the previous case study to reflect the 2024 regulatory environment for California growers, and provides a snapshot of regulatory and production cost increases across three different decades on one large Salinas Valley lettuce operation