Farmers in California are trying to plant crops that don't require a lot of water. Some are turning to growing agave as a response to a warming state.
Juan Rodriguez and his cousin Orlando Flores check on their 2-acre agave field in Vacaville, Calif., on June 26. Their crop was planted two years ago and will be ready to harvest in another five years or so.
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.
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. "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.""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.
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, orChavez 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."on the approximately 8 acres he leases from Muller Ag. It takes around seven years before the crop is ready to be harvested.
"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."Agave spirits" differentiates California's product from mezcal or tequila, both monikers that are attached to the regions in Mexico where they're produced . "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."
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.
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