Spinach Production Important to Texas
International Spinach Conference In San Antonio, December 1, 2008

Spinach production is very important to Texas and especially to the southwest Wintergarden region of Texas where close to 90 percent of the spinach produced in Texas is grown.  Spinach planting is underway and the harvest should start by early November.

While Texas dominated the spinach industry and led in production for the fresh market until the mid-80’s, California now leads  the nation, producing about 78 percent of the 831 million pounds of spinach produced in the U.S. in 2007.  Texas now produces about nine percent of total U.S. production compared to the mid-80’s, when it produced close to 40%. In addition, production for the fresh market has decreased substantially in Texas. Texas ranks a very distant 3rd in production for the fresh market, behind California and Arizona, producing only about 2.0% of the 635.4 million pounds produced in 2007. (See Figure 1). Texas ranks 2nd in production for the processed market behind California, which produced about 32 percent of the 195.6 million pounds of spinach grown for the processed market in 2007.

Growing Demand

Demand is growing for fresh vegetables, after a slight decline during 2005-06, which was probably influenced by the spinach E-coli crisis.  Per capita use of all vegetables is forecast to total 444 pounds in 2008, up 9.7 pounds from 434.3 pounds in 2006.  Demand is especially high for attractive, high quality greens with good taste and high nutritional value. Per capita consumption of romaine lettuce alone has almost tripled during the last few years to 15.3 pounds forecast in 2008, compared to an average of about 4.0 pounds during 1985-1995 and just a trace prior to 1985. This increased demand has helped boost demand and prices for spinach.

Spinach falls into the category of high quality, nutrition-packed, leafy greens with excellent taste.  While total per capita consumption (canning, freezing and fresh) (Figure 2) dipped slightly during the mid-80’s, and again after the spinach E-coli crisis, per capita consumption has been showing increases, increasing to about 2.8 lbs during 2007, up 1.0 lb from an average of 1.8 lbs in the 90’s.  While processed spinach consumption increased slightly after the spinach E-coli crisis, most of the increased per capita spinach consumption has been for the fresh market to an average of 2.0 pounds during the last two years compared to an average of 0.8 pounds during 1992-1999.  Fresh spinach consumption, however, remains just a small blip (about 6%) in relation to total per capita consumption of head and leaf lettuce at about 35.4 pounds in 2007.

It is interesting to note that production for the processed market increased to about 195 million pounds in 2007 after two years of declines (Figure 3).  While most of the increased production for the processed market has been in frozen spinach, it is also interesting to note a significant increase in the production for canning in 2007 to 29.4 million pounds, up 8.36 million pounds from 8.4 million pounds produced in 2006, but down 64.0 percent from 81.6 million pounds produced ten years ago in 1999.   While some processed spinach production in Texas goes to freezing plants, most of the current production goes to canning.

Spinach Value

The farm value of spinach production in Texas (fresh and processed) during 2008 amounted to $4.9 million ($2.53 million processed, $2.4 million fresh)
with an economic impact of about $11.0 million for communities in Southwest Texas. (See Figure 4).