Adult-Use Cannabis: The U.S.’s Fifth Most Valuable Crop

Worth $6.2 billion in 2020, the wholesale harvest value of adult-use cannabis is now America’s fifth most valuable crop, trailing only corn ($61 billion), soybeans ($46 billion), hay ($17.3 billion), and wheat ($9.3 billion), according to Leafly’s first-ever “Cannabis Harvest Report 2021.”

And that’s not the half of it. The $6.2 billion in harvest value comes only from 11 states where adult-use cannabis retail markets are legal and operational. Those 11 states represent roughly 30% of the U.S. population. While the U.S. Department of Agriculture tracks annual yields, prices, and estimated values for nearly every commercial crop grown in the U.S., it does not track state-legal cannabis due to the plant’s federal status as a Schedule I drug. Leafly worked with economists at Whitney Economics to compile its data.

*The statistics above and at right are derived from the 11 states where adult-use cannabis is legal and operational: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, and reported by Leafly.