San Miguel de Allende.- Planting agave to turn it into food for livestock is part of a project that seeks to recover the soil to combat climate change. Private companies have joined the government to achieve this goal.
Francisco Peyret, Director of Environmental Protection recalled that when the current administration arrived they met with ejidos in some forest areas and with social organizations; “From there we built the climate change program for soil recovery, reforestation, and water recovery.”
He explained that they began with works to recover soils, “because when you deforest, after losing trees and shrubs, you lose the land; that’s why we have to make terraces, shelters, and blind tents to recover the soil and then start with the reforestation process ”.
He said that in 2020 they carried out reforestation actions in more than 200 hectares . “The mechanism was that the ejidatarios gave territories for these projects.”
Thus, Los Picachos and Doña Juana communities gave 42 hectares, the people of Via Orgánica 30 hectares, Puerto de Nieto 42 hectares, in Sosnabar 30 hectares, in Agustín González 20 hectares. “We have already intervened with the work and paying temporary employment to ejidatarios for soil recovery and in July and August, the first reforestation tasks started. In those properties they planted, among endemic plants and trees, almost 90 thousand planted individuals.
The municipal official said that in this process they made the decision, with Vía Orgánica and other companies, “the issue of reforesting with agaves, particularly maguey.
First, because the maguey helps to quickly fix the soil, injects it with nitrogen, grows faster than mesquite and has an important water catchment capacity.
He explained that when the cattle is put out to graze, they cause the deforestation of the land and that now in Cañada de la Virgen and Vía Orgánica they began to produce food by crushing the agave and mesquite.
The combination turned out to be a superfood and it is 7 times cheaper than alfalfa and does not consume as much water as alfalfa does.
He indicated that they proposed not only to introduce endemic trees but also magueys so that the recovery of the forest has a dual purpose, “that with pruning they can produce food, especially in the winter season, which is when there is less food.”
In this way, the municipality entered a program called Climate Change and Sustainable Agriculture and they accepted this project so that the ejidatarios can get resources and benefits from what they are planting. “200 hectares are already covered and with a Conafor program we are going to enter another 500 hectares in Salitrillo, for next year we will have 700 hectares.”
He announced that the goal is to reach 2,000 hectares, “but we are going to need to plant about 200 specimens with multiple uses, we want to put fruit and endemic trees. Later on, the larger species, such as oak, but first we have to start with those that take less time ”.
The people of Vía Orgánica have taught them how to process maguey, but for 14 years it has been known about the quality of the food produced by agave. So they say this is nothing new, people in the region are using research from the University of Guanajuato. For example, in regions like San Luis de la Paz, farmers have been trying this food for a long time with excellent results.
San Miguel Times Newsroom
