California farmers turn to agave amid drought conditions and climate change
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Most of the United States' fruits and nuts, like avocados and almonds, come from California. But scientists say human-caused climate change means more extreme heat and intensifying periods of drought for the state. That has led some farmers to seek out less-thirsty crops — like agave.
The succulent has long been grown in Mexico and is the key ingredient in making tequila and mezcal. Agave, though, as a crop is a new idea for the United States. In California, it's more often seen as part of decorative landscaping.
That's changing. Juan Rodriguez is among dozens of farmers who see the potential in the resilient plant.
During the day he works as a roofer, something he has done most of his life. But in the evenings and on weekends, he works with his wife, Cecilia Rodriguez, and cousin Orlando Flores on cultivating the 2-acre field on his Vacaville property, near Sacramento.
That's where he planted his agave in neat rows a couple of years ago. While the plants are not mature yet, they've grown enough that their pointed, outstretched leaves can brush his hip when he walks between the rows to check on them.
It's a familiar plant for Rodriguez. He grew up in a small town in the Mexican state of Jalisco, where agave is everywhere. Generations of his family have cultivated the crop. He'd imagined working with it himself one day, but after he moved to the U.S. at 16, he thought that the opportunity was behind him.
"We came here, and there wasn't any of this," Rodriguez says of growing agave, in Spanish. "We didn't think that would work here."
But a trip to Mexico with his wife a couple of years ago to visit family inspired the couple.
"When he came back and started to want more information, that's when I started to look around," says Cecilia Rodriguez in Spanish. "I told him, 'OK, it's possible.' And then we started."
Rodriguez's 2 acres of agave are possible in part because of California's climate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls California the most agriculturally productive state in the country. In past years, though, the state has seen some of its mainstay crops struggle amid historic drought conditions. Agave, however, can withstand hotter and drier conditions.
Before 2023, fewer than 50 acres of agave were growing in California, according to a University of California, Davis report. That number has increased to over 200. Interest also led to the formation of the California Agave Council in 2022. The nonprofit supports growers, and it now includes 80 growers and eight distillers.
When Flores heard his cousin Rodriguez's plan to plant agave, Flores says in Spanish, he began to feel an itch: "Like a thorn of 'I want to do this, and we want to do this.' And we got to work."
Growing agave in California's weather extremes
Flores knows how agave is grown in Mexico, but he says California's climate is a different story.
"We're learning," he says in Spanish. "Why? Because it's very different — the cycles, the climate, the type of soil." But Flores says that little by little, they're gaining a better understanding of how to grow the crop.
Dry periods are normal in California, as are periods of relief. But experts say droughts will likely persist and even intensify with climate change. When drought strikes, water gets affected. And in California, farmers have struggled to keep crops like almonds, that require a lot of water, healthy.
Agaves, however, can take the heat. They're easy to maintain and don't need a lot of water. Craig Reynolds, founder of the California Agave Council, compares the plant with almonds: While almonds need about 48 inches of water per acre per year, agaves need only 3 inches. Reynolds says this is why he sees great potential in the plant.
"For me, it's all about climate change and how can California farmers adapt and now have to fallow thousands of acres that are predicted to be fallowed in the next 20 years," Reynolds says.
Already, Reynolds has seen California officials incentivize farmers to fallow their land — that is, leave it unplanted to preserve water resources. Agave could allow farmers to use lands they'd otherwise leave alone, because the plant doesn't require as much water as other crops.
"It's not going to replace any entire crop, but it's already proving to be a viable alternative," Reynolds says. "And as it grows, I think it's going to prove even more so."
But growing the crop in California still comes with challenges.
"In light of the climate change, we don't know what is going to happen for sure," says Paula Guzmán-Delgado, a plant physiologist with UC Davis. "For sure, there is going to be less water and it's going to be warmer, so agave is a good candidate."
Guzmán-Delgado is a researcher with the recently formed UC Davis Agave Center. She is looking specifically at how different species of agave grow throughout California. The goal, she says, is to identify best practices for growing the plant in a place where temperatures can swing from intense heat to extreme cold.
Guzmán-Delgado says the climate is more consistent in agave-growing regions in Mexico. Now, California farmers have to learn what kinds of agave grow best in different parts of the state — like Agave tequilana, often called blue agave, or Agave americana.
"We have a huge climatic variability and soil variability," Guzmán-Delgado says. "Even if we get information from Mexico, we have to adapt to the conditions of California."
It takes patience to grow agave
Raul Chavez started growing agave years before Guzmán-Delgado's research began. He's the field manager at Muller Ag in Woodland, near Sacramento.
He met Reynolds, another early enthusiast, about a decade ago. Alongside cultivating their own crop, the two have connected new growers — like Rodriguez — with plant starts and information they need to start growing their own.
It's work Chavez loves. He grew up in Tonaya, a town in Jalisco that calls itself the Land of Mezcal. Many of the family members he knew growing up were agave farmers, or jimadores, and still are today.
Chavez feels most at peace when he's tending to the agave, he says in Spanish: "That's when you calm down, see the plants, see what needs to be done, and I have a lot of fun with that."
It's also hard work. Chavez mostly grows Agave tequilana on the approximately 8 acres he leases from Muller Ag. It takes around seven years before the crop is ready to be harvested. Once the plant matures, its thick leaves are sliced off with a coa — a sharp metal disc attached to a wooden pole.
All that remains afterward is the core, the piña. For Agave tequilana, each piña weighs about 200 pounds. The jimador will usually cut it in half to make it easier to haul to an earthen pit where it'll be cooked down. Later, the cooked agave gets turned into an agave spirit.
Chavez learned to harvest agave from his brother, an experienced jimador who now lives in San Francisco. Guzmán-Delgado says she has noticed that many people who harvest agave by hand in California have similar backgrounds.
"It [agave harvesting] needs skilled workers," she says. "In this case, Mexican people know how to do it — they are the ones teaching others." Guzmán-Delgado says there aren't enough of those skilled workers in California. She says farmers will have to figure out a way to mechanize the process for the agave industry to really flourish.
"It is impossible to harvest all the agave that [is] going to be in California," she says. "They will have to build a machine for harvesting."
A growing market for California agave spirits
Rodriguez's agave crop won't be ready to harvest for a few more years. If it's a success, he hopes one day to leave his job as a roofer and grow agave full time.
"The plan is to see what happens next and, if we see there's a future, dedicate ourselves completely to the agave," says Rodriguez in Spanish.
Growing agave is only one-half of the equation. The other is distilling it to make agave spirits.
"Agave spirits" differentiates California's product from mezcal or tequila, both monikers that are attached to the regions in Mexico where they're produced (just like Champagne, which can get that title only if it's a sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France).
In 2022, California solidified the use of the term "agave spirit" into law. It stated that anything labeled as a "California agave spirit" must be made from 100% California-grown agave without any additives or coloring.
Sean Venus, who owns Venus Spirits in Santa Cruz, started distilling agave in 2014. He initially relied entirely on agave syrup from Mexico to make the spirit.
But after partnering with Reynolds, he started using California-grown agave. Venus says there isn't enough of it for all the agave spirits he makes, so he still relies on syrup from Mexico — but he expects that to change.
"I would say four to five years," Venus says. "There's going to be a lot of it available as the farmers that are just getting into it right now are getting mature plants."
Until then, Venus and other distillers are planning to make sure the operations and the distribution system are in place.
Gian Pablo Nelson, a Napa-based distiller and the owner of Jano Spirits, says this preparation requires some innovation. He started distilling agave a couple of years ago and says, unlike Venus, he decided to use only agaves that are native to the U.S., like Agave americana.
As he waits for more growers' crops to mature, he and his business partner have had to get creative in how they source that agave.
"We have to find those agaves out in the wild," Nelson says. "If we see a bunch of wild agave on the side of the highway, we'll pin them [on our map]."
After that, he says he'll find the plant's owner and ask whether he can harvest it.
"We're doing this in a kind of organic — not grassroots, but almost agave roots movement," Nelson says.
For now, Nelson says, this work is mostly a labor of love rather than a lucrative one.
More agave, more growers
At the farm where Chavez grows agave, the voice of Colombian singer Carlos Vives blares through speakers. Reynolds says the music is a good way to get people in the mood to cook the piñas.
Distillers and growers take shots of agave spirit made by a California distiller alongside mounds of piñas laid out on blue tarps by a stone-lined earthen pit.
They toss pencas — the agave leaves — over heated stones to protect the piñas from burning and to help steam them. Next, they haul the heavy piñas into the pit under Chavez's direction, each one landing with a satisfying thud.
"Put it right there," Chavez says, switching between Spanish and English and nodding to a spot among the growing pile of agave cores. "That one on the top, right?"
Chavez and others stamp the piñas with their feet to pack them in tight. The pit is covered with a tarp, and dirt gets shoveled on top to trap the heat. The piñas will steam here for a week before being processed into agave spirits.
Chavez has done this many times and enjoys explaining the process to newer growers — like Abraham Granados, who grew up in a town in Jalisco. His family grew corn instead of agave. Even so, Granados says that he, like others, was intrigued by the broad-leafed plant and wondered what it would be like to grow it.
It would be some years before he'd find out. He followed his father's footsteps after moving to the U.S. and worked in construction, later starting his own company in San Francisco. But Granados says in Spanish, "In reality, everything I like to do has to do with being out in the fields."
He planted his agave in Tracy, a town south of Sacramento, last October.
"I feel a little like I'm inside the dream I had as a child," Granados, now 50, says in Spanish.
While he waits for the agave to mature, Granados says, he's making plans to launch his own distillery. That requires some patience.
"As I've just barely planted, I have six years to plan what I'm going to do for my distillery," he says.
Granados says he doesn't have enough water to grow most other crops on his land — but agave's sturdiness and adaptability make it the exception.
These qualities are exactly why agave has gained so much traction in California that this year, state lawmakers passed a bill that would establish an agave commission. Reynolds says he expects Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign the bill, especially because Newsom has shown support for climate-resilient agriculture.
"If you look at it [agave] as an infant industry, this is kind of — OK, we've been crawling for two years and now we're toddlers," Reynolds says. "We're on our own two feet walking."
