Food & Agr. Code, § 14649 · Article 10. Violations
Food & Agr. Code, § 14649
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) It is unlawful for the owner of a plant, crop, or commodity to knowingly treat or apply to that plant, crop, or commodity, or cause that plant, crop, or commodity to be treated or applied, with a fertilizer that was stolen or otherwise acquired by illegal means.
(b) The owner of a crop, who is found by a court to have violated this section, in addition to any other penalties imposed by a court, is subject to a fine of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) plus an amount equal to one-half the value of the crop on which the illegally obtained fertilizer was applied.
(c) For purposes of this section, “one-half the value of the crop” means one-half the market value of the crop that was actually treated with the illegally obtained fertilizer as determined by the actual sale of the crop or, if the crop is not actually sold, as determined by the secretary based on an average of the typical market value for such a crop sold in the normal channels of trade in the year in which the crop was produced and in the preceding two years.
(d) Moneys received as a result of fines and penalties imposed pursuant to this section shall be divided and distributed as follows:
(1) Fifty percent to the county in which the case was brought to court or in which a court-approved settlement of the matter was negotiated.
(2) Twenty-five percent to the office of the county agricultural commissioner.
(3) Twenty-five percent to the department.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2018, Ch. 92, Sec. 75. (SB 1289) Effective January 1, 2019.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAC§ionNum=14649.
- Text hash
- sha256 af6169fa28211fdcf51c0ab0de5c1a1725b70a2dc721a8bbd66a9a2e9610d38d
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.