Marin County officials this week simultaneously declared a continued state of agricultural emergency and praised local agriculture for a significant increase in gross value between 2013 and 2014.

The 2014 Livestock and Crop Report, released on Tuesday, highlighted a 19 percent increase in gross value for the county’s agricultural production, driven by a surge in organic milk production that nearly doubled between 2013 and 2014—from $20.8 million to $33.5 million—due to high demand and prices throughout the Bay Area.

But that’s just part of the story. According to Marin’s agricultural commissioner, Stacy Carlsen, grazing lands this year have lost over 50 percent of their forage capacity. As a result, local livestock operations have been forced to reduce herd sizes or resort to purchasing expensive supplemental feeds.

On Tuesday Mr. Carlsen recommended that supervisors issue the agricultural emergency declaration. Doing so, he noted, allows ranchers to continue receiving federal aid for disaster relief. 

The emergency declaration, which has been renewed annually since 2012, notes that drought conditions have contributed to an estimated nearly $6 million loss in the value of rangelands from December 2012 to June 2015. 

Mr. Carlsen said he doesn’t see things improving in the near future. “Currently, grass is starting to reduce its yield and productivity, and [ranchers] are going to have to rely more on buying hay,” he said.

In addition to booming organic milk production, the crop and livestock report showed a nearly 100 percent increase in aquaculture sales in 2014 compared to 2013, for a gross value of $10.6 million. 

That increase is only temporary, however. “Next year, with the loss of production at the Drakes Bay Oyster Company, that number will drop probably back in half,” Mr. Carlsen said.

The rest of the rise is due mostly to an increase in data accuracy resulting from the county ag department gaining access to California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s aquaculture reports.

Seven hundred more cattle were sold in 2014 than the year prior, and at higher prices per head, for a 32 percent jump in gross sales. But that higher number of cattle sold reflects a recent trend among ranchers who have been reducing their livestock to balance out the loss of
pastureland.

According to the president of the Marin County Farm Bureau, Sam Dolcini, the idea is that selling more cows now helps keep ranchers afloat through the year, albeit at the risk of having fewer cows available for next year’s market.

“Lots of people have trimmed the number of cows substantially,” Mr. Dolcini, a fifth-generation rancher, said. “Trying to feed your way through a drought can be expensive.”

Hit hardest by the decline in forage are the many organic ranchers who must graze their livestock in pastures at least 120 days a year to maintain their organic certification. About a third of the county’s ranches and farms are certified organic, representing about 70 operations and about 40,000 acres.

Left with less forage, many ranchers have responded by selling more cows earlier in the year to preserve grass stocks and to avoid buying organic alfalfa at costs averaging around $300 a ton. 

It’s a practice many West Marin ranchers pursued last year, when the level of forage lost to the drought was even worse, at over 85 percent. 

“We did this last year thinking we’d get a [good] year, and didn’t,” Mr. Dolcini said. “So you do it again this year.”

Mr. Dolcini also estimated that the total number of cows that will give birth in West Marin going forward is down by 20 percent.

Loren Poncia, who runs Stemple Creek Ranch in Tomales, has chosen to sell more of his beef and lambs rather than pour money into alfalfa. “One of the reasons why I’m selling is because we don’t know when we’re coming out of the drought,” said Mr. Poncia, whose family has worked the ranch since the early 1900s. “There’s not a crystal ball.”

Some are hoping that a major El Niño event—which has been strengthening across the Pacific Ocean since March, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—will bring heavy rainfall this winter. But relying on the prospect of El Niño rains “could be disastrous,” Mr. Dolcini said. 

A true rebound for West Marin cattle numbers depends on an even distribution of rainfall throughout the year, rather than the recent pattern of rains concentrated in December and February. The lack of spring rains this year left ranches with less “residual,” or uneaten, grass—an amount ranchers use as an indicator for how much forage will be available in the future.

According to Mr. Carlsen, 2013 was the driest year on record in Marin County, based on measurements taken at the Marin Municipal Water District’s official weather gauge at Lake Lagunitas. There, only 10.68 inches of rain were recorded in 2013, down drastically from the annual average of 52 inches per year, data the district has been keeping since 1879.

Combined with a disaster report Mr. Carlsen submitted to the California State Office of Emergency Services, the county’s emergency declaration opens the possibility for ranchers to be accepted into a number of disaster-relief programs of the United States Department of Agriculture.