Is Growing Agave a Good Fit for California? UC Merced Aims to Find Out

As crops go, agave holds a lot of promise for the northern San Joaquin Valley. The succulents thrive in hot sun, don't require much water and can be grown in the region's sandy soils. And though agave, mainly grown in Mexico, is best known as the source of tequila and mezcal, it has other uses that range from nutritional supplements to fabrics.

UC Merced researchers and area growers have been delving agave's potential for the past few years. Those efforts recently included signing an agreement with Madera Community College District to collaborate on a 10-20-acre test plot, as well as a visit from experts to discuss the idea with campus partners and community members.

"From a scientific point of view, we know that agave has a lot of benefits," César Armando Puente Garza of Tecnológico de Monterrey told attendees during a public educational event at UC Merced on Main.

The event brought together those with an interest in agriculture, sustainability and biotechnology and reached growers, scientists and community members from the Merced area and beyond. And it's just the beginning: The university's department of Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) will soon offer classes in agriculture technology.

UC Merced has developed a partnership with Tecnológico de Monterrey, one of Mexico's top research universities, to facilitate student and faculty exchanges in bioengineering and ag tech.

"Partnerships with leading institutions like Tecnológico de Monterrey, combined with Mexico's millennia-old agave heritage, are critical to advancing research on climate-resilient cultivation and processing across diverse landscapes and production systems," said civil and environmental engineering Professor Josué Medellín-Azuara .

As part of that partnership, Puente Garza also spoke to students, staff and faculty about research collaborations and scientific uses for agave at a workshop on campus.

One popular use of agave is to create pulque, a fermented beverage that Puente Garcia said contains roughly 70 percent of the daily recommended vitamins and minerals per serving. Agave piñas - or the heart of the plant - and leaves are nutritious food with a sweet, fibrous taste. And agave fibers are used to make durable ropes, textiles and paper products.

Stuart Woolf, grower and executive chairman of Woolf Farming and Processing in Fresno and president of an agave council formed five years ago, said challenges obtaining water for his crops led him to look at other options.

"We have 6,000 to 7,000 acres we won't have enough water for," he said. Some of that land will be used for a solar panel installation. But the rest of it was likely to lay unused.

"About six years ago, we started a test plot to see how it would do," Woolf said. He was intrigued by the possibility of using the agave plant as a biofuel and its syrup as a sweetener.

"One thing about us being in California, we're innovators, we're adaptors, we're resilient," he said. "We look at agave as probably one of the solutions for us to continue to farm land and employ people in our area."

Joshua Viers, associate vice chancellor for interdisciplinary research and strategic initiatives at UC Merced, identified emerging research opportunities and highlighted recent federal and state funding supporting the Farms Food Future (F3) Initiative, along with investments in the university's Experimental Smart Farm, where several acres of agave will be planted to demonstrate drought-tolerant agricultural systems for the region.

Though tequila is strictly regulated - and right now only legally produced in Mexico - Puente Garza said it makes sense to grow agave in California.

Added his colleague, Daylan Tzompa Sosa, "We share more than a border. We share the need of being efficient with water resources and expertise. We also share the love for agave."

Patty Guerra