The latest report on agricultural land valuations in Kern County shows water security continues to be a driving force and the direction is mostly downward. Alliance Ag Services LLC, a brokerage and appraisal firm, has been tracking the value of farmland in Kern County by water source, or sources, for nearly two decades. For about the past eight years, since the crippling 2012-16 drought and passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, the numbers have been flat to dismal.