By Rodrigo Diaz Guerrero
Alejandro Vasconcelos Peña arrived in San Miguel de Allende a little over thirteen years ago. Ever since I met him, he has devoted his time and his talent to environmental issues, and specifically to the harvest, and everything related to agave. His first career was mechanical engineering from the Universidad del Valle de México, but he also graduated as Technician in Sustainable and Protected Agriculture from UTSMA. This marked the beginning of various tasks such as: co-founder of Mezcal Art, and co-founder of Somos Mezcaleros. He became trainer, speaker, and part of a jury in the prestigious spirits contest «Mexico Selection by Concours Mondial de Bruxelles.» He was the director and coordinator of the book La Ruta Secreta del Mezcal. These are some of the many projects that he has embarked on his restless spirit, always emphasizing his concern for the environment and society. A year ago he founded, together with his team, the Civil Association «Huella de Carbono,» which serves as an umbrella for all his initiatives. Here are portions of the talk he had with us:
RDG: What is the “Carbon Footprint” project about?
AVP: It is a Civil Association made up of several specialist friends who love the environment; whose main objective is to help provide jobs in rural communities and ecological improvement, with agroforestry projects that generate a circular economy. The CA has an international verifier with whom we are designing all the projects for the registration of carbon credits and environmental compensation. These include not only trees and grass, but also cacti that generate derivatives, with which people can feed animals, make sweeteners, distillates, and even textile fibers, generating jobs for the area and addressing social issues.
Once we obtain the carbon credits, the communities can maintain their projects with the income generated. We can then continue our work in other communities in the state of Guanajuato, as well as in other states of the republic. «Somos Mezcaleros,» is one of the initiatives of the project as a whole. It is a training and environmental consulting center, where we carry out agroforestry intervention projects. We train the producer so that he knows how to make fodder, plant agaves for his crops, or plant nurseries for sale in the state, with reforestation or distillate projects. This has led us to have a brand of agave distillate that is sustainable, with sustainable production, leading to a zero carbon balance. It is not only an excellent distillate (winner of a gold medal in the contest of the Magazine Cava, and silver medal in the contest of the Academy of Maguey and Mezcal AC), but it also has social and environmental responsibility, generating fair trade. In fact, I invite all our readers to visit our distillery, plantations and nursery, where they can learn about the fascinating world of agaves.
RDG: Was there any determining personal epiphany for you to decide to dedicate yourself to what you do?
AVP: Yes, not having water on my family’s ranch, which taught me, and forced me to learn to work with cacti. Specifically with agaves and their derivatives such as fodder, fiber, honey and distillates, always looking for an added value for sale, but that does not require high amounts of water for its development.
RDG: What projects is Alejandro Vasconcelos working on today?
AVP: Training and teaching everything that I have learned in the last 13 years has led me to have a little more than 400 students who are agave producers today. I am just looking for how to tell everyone the history of the distillates in Guanajuato, through a book of stories (Haciendas y mezcales de Guanajuato), which can help generate tourism in the communities where the haciendas have worked with agave for more than 400 years. We are inviting four writers from Guanajuato, so that with their talent, stories and the spirit of the agave they can conquer more hearts and palates. If you want to contact Alejandro, his email is: 4agaves@gmail.com
