The overproduction of agave for tequila in Mexico triggers climate alerts

The agave landscape of tequila celebrates this Wednesday 17 years of being a World Heritage Site of the Unescobut given the growing demand for the Mexican drink in the last 10 years, monoculture spaces have multiplied, which contributes to the climate crisis.

The increase in the areas cultivated with the agave plant, from which tequila is extracted, contributes to the loss of key ecosystems for the environment and to the fact that farmers stop producing basic grains such as corn, specialists consulted by EFE agreed.

In 2006, the agave landscape was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), which recognized 34,658 hectares of crops for their scenic beauty and cultural importance. , social and historical.

This landscape close to the town of Tequila, where the drink originates, extended to forests, jungles and mountains of Jalisco and other states, such as Guanajuato and Michoacán, so that producers have agave available in response to the demand of an industry that grew 526% in almost three decades, according to the Tequila Regulatory Council (CRT).

“A territory is transformed where what is wanted is to produce as much as possible, in the shortest time and space possible and this can only be achieved with fertilizers, with insecticides, with everything that replaces what the ecosystem did”affirmed in an interview Dánae Cabrera, an ecologist who studies the subject.

Although there is regulation of the places where producers can plant agave, it is common for them to buy agricultural land or resort to burning or deforesting natural spaces, Pablo Montaño, coordinator of the Climate Connections organization, told EFE.

“There are several phenomena, one is the removal of forests and jungles where the land is cleared, the native mass is removed and replaced by agaves. There is a lot of evidence of fires that are later linked to the planting of agaves, they can do it with simple deforestation and they also substitute crops”said.

According to the CRT, in the five states with designation of origin for tequila there are 413,870 hectares of agave crops distributed in 173 municipalities.

In 2017, there were 29 million plants available and five years later, in 2022, the number increased to 375 million plants.

In Jalisco, the state with the largest number of agaves and bottled tequila, it is increasingly common for plantations to invade hills and protected areas such as the La Primavera Forest.

climate effect drink

Experts say that this invasion has a two-way effect on the climate crisis because by taking land away from tropical forests, they destroy their ecosystem and prevent further absorption of carbon dioxide, a key component of global warming.

“We remove forest mass that helps slow down or mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, forests that allow you to reduce temperatures, that will make climate change feel stronger”Montano explained.

The tropical forest, also known as the low jungle, is considered one of the ecosystems that will have the most resistance to the effects of global warming due to the characteristics of its flora and fauna.

But destroying it and imposing monocultures favors the loss of trees and the natural system that depends on them.

“All the ecological cycles of this territory established millions of years ago, which has generated a mosaic of interactions between the flora that is a refuge for pollinators, are broken”said Cabrera, also an academic at the University of Guadalajara.

Unsustainable tequila production

For specialists, this rate of production is unsustainable in the medium term, since there is a risk that there will be no productive land to plant the agave.

The alternative is for the tequila industry to reduce the intensity of plant production to restore damaged surfaces and implement agroforestry systems in which agaves are interspersed with other types of trees and flowers, Cabrera said.

“These are much smaller production scales, but more diverse, but local producers must also be included in the equation of this”he assured.

In Montaño’s opinion, it is time for businessmen to pause and consider what the future of this industry is.

“It seems that the tequila makers are gambling to win as much money as possible, but in reality they are cutting the branch on which they are sitting”he concluded.

Source: EFE