MERCED Calif. — When James Hunt planted 14 acres of agave on his secluded Merced farm last year, he thought he’d harvest it for liquor. After all, for centuries, Mexico has capitalized on distilling agave into tequila and mezcal.
The vision was picturesque – rows of large, spiky succulents rooted in a field with the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the distance.
“That was my original idea: to build a craft distillery out here and have that as the backdrop,” Hunt, 45, said.
But then he did more research on the plant – which requires little water and a lot of heat – and that dream snowballed into something bigger.
“You could have spirits, agave syrup, agave inulin, biofuel, and sustainable aviation fuel,” he said.
Hunt knew his ideas needed an industry to call home in the U.S., so he started “preaching the gospel of agave,” as he described it, to anyone who listened.
“I was a farm manager, farm operator, and now I'm an industry advocate, trying to build out something that I think can have a lot of benefit for small farms in general,” Hunt said.
Now, with California’s hallmark groundwater law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), restricting water use on farms, Valley farmers like Hunt are looking to agave as a new revenue stream. Localizing the agave supply, they say, is becoming enticing.
“You can plant almonds – they've been here for a while. You can plant walnuts – been done. Pistachios… all the row crops. All this stuff's been grown here for a long time,” Hunt said. “Anybody that farms that I talk to — once you really start giving them some real information, they get excited. Their eyes get big. They're like, ‘Wow, I haven't grown something new, pretty much ever!’”
Looking toward ‘SGMA-ready crops’
Hunt knows many growers who are testing out agave right now. But it’s not just for kicks, he said. It’s out of necessity, and it has to do with groundwater.
“We're taking more water out than is going back in,” said Josh Viers, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Merced.
What Viers described is known as groundwater overdraft. That happens when groundwater gets pumped out, but it’s not replenished. It causes wells to go dry and land to sink, and it’s been happening for decades.
“Effectively, we've limited the amount of recharge that happens because we keep most of the water behind our dams, and we've been pumping groundwater, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, at rates that are much much greater than the amount of replenishment,” Viers said.
Even though the region’s agriculture industry contributes significantly to this problem, climate change and changing weather patterns do, too.
“California has this Mediterranean type climate, and we have wet years and dry years, and increasingly, those are extreme on both ends,” Viers explained. “So pronounced wet followed by prolonged dry, and during that dry period, we might actually use more groundwater.”
To combat this, California legislators enacted SGMA in 2014 to stabilize water use. The law created local agencies to gradually limit the use of the water.
“It gave them a drawdown period over 30 years to be able to meet that sustainability target, and also to maintain some specific guardrails, you might say, about that use,” Viers said.
All of this means farmers are making cuts. For example, some are watering a few inches of soil on crops such as agave instead of a few feet of soil on an almond tree.
Agave is part of a group of plants researchers are calling “SGMA-ready crops.”
“These are crops that might be adopted locally and put into play and wouldn't require nearly as much water,” Viers said. “Some of those are winter crops, like wheat, that are more rain-fed. Some of them are more like desert-type crops, and as it turns out, agave is one of these desert crops that is obviously from parts of Mexico.”
A report released in June by the Public Policy Institute of California found that as much as 900,000 acres of irrigated farmland in the San Joaquin Valley could be taken out of production as a result of SGMA. This could result in farmers being forced to fallow their land or try alternatives, like agave or winter grain, instead of water-heavy crops like almonds or pistachios.
“As farmland is fallowed, land repurposing that happens on large, interconnected areas may boost the benefits of certain alternative uses, such as habitat restoration or solar energy production,” the report states. “Flexible cropping options can help ease fallowing pressure and put the valley on a path towards beneficial land stewardship, even under challenging conditions.”
A future beyond alcohol
Some farmers are more equipped to plant and sell agave than others.
Omar Ramirez is a grower in Le Grand, a community in southeast Merced County. He has too many businesses to count, but one of them is a tequila line based in Mexico called “Luna Llena.”
“A lot of my businesses have arose from problems, and there's a common saying that if you know how to solve people's problems, you're always going to have work,” Ramirez, 34, said.
Ramirez lived in Mexico for a few years as a kid. In Le Grand, he used to grow almonds. Then profits tanked a few years ago.
With SGMA in focus, he thought, “Why not try something familiar?”
He planted 100 acres of agave.
“As a Mexican-American, that light bulb lit to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I think this is a perfect way to bring both of my cultures that I really love into one location,’” Ramirez said.
He might make spirits, but he’s also looking at producing animal feed and building materials, such as bricks. He’s excited about conversations that go beyond alcohol.
“Opportunities that arise in the United States are a bit different than what are destined in Mexico,” Ramirez said.
Hunt also feels good about agave’s destiny here. Nearly all of his plants survived the winter frost, even though some have dried up tips.
It’ll be four to six years before the first batch is ready to harvest. He’s trying out three different variations of the plant: Espadín, Weber Azul, and Yolo, which all mature at different rates.
As the agave grows, he’ll try to develop the agave economy. He knows he’s making a big bet, but he can’t imagine not farming.
“There's nothing like growing a crop and spending your days out there working in it, and then at the end of the year getting to harvest something and see the actual fruits of your labor,” Hunt said.
He’s only ever lived on this one plot of land. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep it.
“Farming is a gamble,” Hunt said. “And I'm willing to go out on a limb for this because I believe in it.”
