2024 California Cannabis Harvest Report: Introduction

Introduction to 2024 California Cannabis Harvest Report

Grape Harvest Reports like the USDA's Grape Crush Reports are a crucial part of setting the tone for the premium wine industry year after year and highly sought after by buyers and decision makers - helping educate on climatic impacts on year to year vintages as vintners work year after year with the same vines. As of 2025, no Cannabis Harvest Report exists for the California cannabis industry. At the end of 2024, Budist co-founder Claudio Miranda came to Caleb Chen and Alex Scherma with a crazy idea. “Let’s do a Budist Cannabis Harvest report for 2024!” A survey was put together with the help of Matthew Shevach, a list of licensed Sungrown farms was compiled and invitations to participate were sent out. In the ensuing months, the total weight of the endeavor revealed itself. While we lament that this report wasn’t timely enough to inform buyers on specific standout products to pre-order, we also cherish the opportunity to present farm level harvest information to better inform cannabis buyers about the factors that make their chosen farmers and their farms unique.

Responses were gathered in Trinity County, Mendocino County, Lake County, Nevada County, and Humboldt County. Thank you to all the participating farms for sharing highlights about your cultivars, terroir, and microclimates.

Disclaimer: Obviously these five counties do not represent all of California’s licensed outdoor cultivators and certainly not the entire state’s outdoor cultivators - which include homegrowers who deserve to benefit from yearly harvest reports, too. In our first year, we wanted to start small and gather information that could be used for more robust year-to-year comparisons. Even now, most of our thoughts are geared towards presenting the 2025 Budist Cannabis Harvest Report in 2026, and these 2024 data points will be crucial for context. Speaking of the 2025 Budist Cannabis Harvest Report, any interested farms should reach out to participate - no matter what county you’re in.

We additionally lament the large swaths of the state which are a crucial part of legacy cannabis cultivation history and culture but are not present on the legal landscape. Future Cannabis Harvest Reports will try to incorporate cannabis cultivators from all regions as our hope is that these Harvest Reports become useful for homegrowers with similar environmental conditions as our featured farms.

All across California, farmers are growing different cannabis cultivars and continually experimenting to discover which ones do the best with the critical photoperiod dictated by their latitude and local geography. At the same time, farmers are constantly gauging and juggling future market demand and even future climatic conditions. Every year, starting material varies from tissue cultures to clones to seeds that the farmer had bought from others or seeds that the farmer had bred themselves. Farmers are the most proud when they are able to grow something that they bred themselves; however, this is not always possible and has even increasingly become the exception not the rule.

To the full term sungrown farmers out there, we salute you. Many of the surveyed farmers have taken the additional step to get certifications by third parties ranging from the SUN + EARTH, to DEM Pure, to the Regenerative Farming Guild, or even a Fish Friendly certification. At the same time, many farmers without certifications participate in regenerative agricultural practices, but can’t afford the certification because of worsening market conditions. Despite this backdrop of abandoned licenses, farms, and shrinking cannabis genetic diversity, Budist is highlighting farms that are Doing the Damn Thing in face of incredible opposition.

Year after year, as the number of licensed farms in California continue to fall, cannabis farmers have started to report varied outlooks on the coming years. Some reported that their resolve and relationship with the plant were being “tested” while others reported that they were steadfastly committed to providing this “sacred medicine” to people. Despite the regulatory outlook being depressingly overcast, the 2024 growing season was reportedly stellar for all surveyed counties with the exception of a few reported adverse weather events.

As the legal industry shakes out, we are seeing farms specialize in different end consumer products whether that be prerolls or concentrates. Some farms only grew for flower consumption, others dedicated as much as 95% of their harvest to fresh frozen extraction. While the price per pound is lower for fresh frozen material, farmers are able to make it make cents and dollars in today’s industry by saving money on drying, curing, trimming, and storage.

All in all, the 2024 Cannabis Harvest in California was marked by good weather, the backdrop of an industry in tumult, and a slow but steady onward march of cannabis farmers in the Golden State.