Words from the land, the process, and the journey.
Palabras desde la tierra, el proceso y el camino.
Reconstructing Agave Landscapes
By Daniel Dueñas. Unión de Tula, Jalisco, 2026.
The agave-for-spirits industry is wreaking havoc on the landscapes of Jalisco. There is an over-extraction of the land’s nutrients, there is clearing of native flora, displacement of fauna, and degradation is rampant. This is all a product of the greed that comes with our free market, our market of overconsumption and our desire for rapid production. We want to produce more and more for our consumers who consume more and more. Conscious consumption has mostly gone out the window and in turn, mother nature’s suffering is accelerating at an astounding pace.
Solutions have been presented to us; we learn more and more about the negative effects daily. How do we implement these measures? The truth has been presented to us — it is our responsibility now to take action. Agaves are masters at carbon sequestration, masters dancing at the helm of the environment we grace them with. This environment includes native trees, shrubs, grasses, livestock, and stewards. We are the stewards, stewards that are responsible for caring and loving this beautiful world that we were born in; our actions will mark the trajectory of the future our descendants will experience.
The trajectory we choose and its destination will not be seen, felt, or touched by us. Long after we’re gone the effects will be lived, and thanks to the mere scale of our existence now, do we have a glimpse of what is to come. The agave industry has caused us to lose our way for a bit — we have experienced loss of soil health, loss of forests, a decline in critical fauna — but this will all allow us to correct our course. The problems I have named now have solutions and there are major reasons why we should stand behind them.
“A single teaspoon of healthy soil can contain more microorganisms than there are people on Earth,” according to the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service; monoculture agave fields are doing a tremendous disservice to this fascinating fact.
Agave agroforestry has profound potential when it comes to helping reverse the effects of climate change, particularly in the context of tropical dry forest degradation. Seventy-three percent of tropical dry forests had been altered, degraded, or converted by the early 1990s, with the most common transformation being to agriculture or cattle grassland — a trend worsened by the recent tequila and mezcal boom. Project Drawdown reports a median sequestration rate of 9.8 tons of CO₂ per hectare per year for agroforestry systems. Each hectare managed this way could remove roughly as much climate pollution as the annual emissions of about two typical passenger vehicles, showing that regenerative land-use change can be meaningful even at relatively small scales. Restoring these landscapes has climate, biodiversity, and sociocultural value.
But progress faces real obstacles. There is little incentive to change — large tequila and mezcal companies continue to seek growth, scale, and profits, and the model they operate in is heavily extractive. Profitability still tends to lie in efficient harvesting and production, which usually means monoculture agave fields. Changing to an agroforestry agave system is expensive — both monetarily and in time. It requires a high level of knowledge to implement, it takes years for the benefits to show, and it demands a paradigm shift from conventional farming practices to local ecological understanding.
The most impactful way to address these challenges is by providing data and proof of results. In Jalisco, Tequila Torrente has become the world’s first certified regenerative tequila — a pioneer in the space and proof that there are brands doing the right work and finding success. In my own project, Sereno de Cerro, I am documenting and seeing actual results: a proliferation of native trees and shrubs in my agave fields since we started managing livestock grazing, enhancing soil health, and promoting the growth of diverse flora. I am starting a native seed bank that will include native agaves, trees, and shrubs. The goal is to offer agave agroforestry kits — agaves paired with native companion species — so that small-scale farmers can ease into a regenerative system.
The burden of making this transition must not fall only on small-scale farmers. Large agave spirit corporations must also bear the weight of change. There need to be incentives and subsidies to help small-scale farmers fund this transition, as well as incentives for large-scale companies so that impact can be felt at every level — a positive snowball effect.
One of the most surprising lessons came from the land itself. In March 2025, a wildfire swept through our ranch. Two adjacent plots told completely different stories. The blue agave plot where we had laid dried corn stalks as mulch burned — the fire fed on the accumulated dry organic matter. The plot directly below, with native trees and mares grazing periodically, was untouched — the fire skipped right over it. The difference was grazing reducing fuel load, not just biodiversity. Livestock integration isn’t just a soil health tool — it’s fire management. Timing grazing before dry season is the optimization I missed.
Solutions I have experienced and researched point us in the direction we should be going. I am grateful to have a living lab where these solutions can be tried and tested. Agaves should be grown between rows of native grasses, trees, shrubs, and flowers, with livestock grazing intentionally and our stewardship guiding this precious chariot.
More writing to come.
Más escritos por venir.