Leo Ortega started growing spiky blue agave plants on the arid hillsides around his Southern California home because his wife liked the way they looked.
A decade later, his property is now dotted with thousands of what he and others hope is a promising new crop for the state following years of punishing drought and a push to scale back on groundwater pumping.
The 49-year-old mechanical engineer is one of a growing number of Californians planting agave to be harvested and used to make spirits, much like the way tequila and mezcal are made in Mexico. The trend is fueled by the need to find hardy crops that don’t need much water and a booming appetite for premium alcoholic beverages since the COVID-19 pandemic.
And drinking mezcal into oblivion is one of the best rational options left
I mean, yeah? It’s better to grow crops that will readily thrive in the native climate, even and especially if that climate is shifting away from whatever you used to grow there.
This isn’t environmentalism, it’s just shitty capitalism. “We can’t grow these crops for profit anymore, so what other crop can we grow for profit?”. Do we need more alcohol or do we need sustinece crops? Growing something just to grow something isn’t the solution. Unless we want a repeat of “every other crop is corn because it pays the best but now we have more corn than ever needed”.
There aren’t many sustenance crops that grow well in the desert, things aren’t meant to live there. We shouldn’t be there but it’s going to be hard to move the 50 million people or so we have in the American desert out of it
Then maybe, crazy idea, we should stop trying to grow crops in areas where it’s not adapted for it, instead of insisting that we import water in from other states to meet our needs while we grow non essential crops. We’re walking around with a hammer seeing every problem as a nail. Crops aren’t needed everywhere. Especially when they’re non food/textile producing ones that are literally used to just get drunk.
Especially when they’re non food/textile producing ones that are literally used to just get drunk.
Just for clarity agave can be used as a sweetener, edible, it’s fibers can be used in textiles, can be made into soap, and has some medicinal uses. Once the market saturates with spirits it’s other uses will likely be marketed to fully utilize crop yields.
So what do you do for a living, because I almost guarantee your job is having an impact on the environment as well. I would rather them grow native, drought resistant (meaning low water intake) crops to make a living than not.
Maybe we should stop trying to grow crops for cash in a desert. That’s capitalism trying to squeeze value from everything. There is no need for this. It’s purely to make money.
And what do you do for a living? Because I’m sure the question is just as stupidly pointless when directed at you. Your point?
Apparently you completely missed it.
We shouldn’t be growing non essential crops in areas where the PEOPLE don’t have enough water. It’s really that simple. When there’s not enough water for PEOPLE, growing agave to make alcohol that is a dehydrator is ridiculous. It’s entirely non essential and even if it’s “less than growing alfalfa”, it’s still “more than is needed”.
What’s your solution for the people that live there?
Sure, when there’s no more food available, you might as well turn to booze.
