Agave Growing Into a New Crop Option for More California Farmers

Agave has long been grown in parts of Mexico to make tequila and mezcal. But in California, it’s only more recently gotten attention from Central Valley farmers seeking options as they face water shortages and the prospect of fallowing land.

Researchers say agave could be a useful option for farmers with limited water supplies. The drought-resilient crop has demonstrated commercially viable yields with less than a tenth of the water usage needed for many tree crops. To help farmers, experts are ramping up research on cultivating agave in California and exploring various potential markets for the crop.

For starters, experts say making agave a California crop requires understanding what practices traditionally used to grow the plant may need to be altered for the state’s environment.

Madera Community College worked with researchers to develop and begin offering an agave growers course last fall. In June, volunteers at the college planted 20 agave varieties in a test plot, which will feed into research efforts to better understand the succulent.

“We want to see which ones, depending on the variety, will thrive in the Central Valley so we could take the risk for the farmers,” MCC President Ángel Reyna says. “The first year, we’ll water it some, but not as much as other crops. And then after the first year, we won’t water it as much, if at all. And then we’re going to see which ones will thrive after that.”

Agave’s footprint in California, while still small, has increased markedly within the past few years. A University of California, Davis, survey found around 50 acres of the crop were grown in California before 2023. A new report found that by 2025 that number grew to more than 600 acres across 31 counties.

“Farmers are looking to diversify to plants that don’t require a lot of water, and agave is one of them,” Reyna says.

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