Introduced in May this year, the Agave Responsable Ambiental (ARA) certification is a protocol designed to ensure that by 2027 the agave-tequila production chain will be 100-percent free of deforestation.
If successful, tequila would likely become the first alcoholic beverage in the world to be certified “deforestation free.”
Under the protocol, permission for new agave plantations will only be granted if they are located in authorized and properly conditioned sites for the crop.
The “eligibility area” in which Azul Tequilana Weber variety agave can be planted covers more than three million hectares in Jalisco and some parts of Guanajuato. The agave-tequila chain is made up of some 160 producing companies, 70,000 families and 19,000 agaveros (agave cultivators).
The initiative was first presented at the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (COP25), held in Madrid at the end of 2019.
Between 1993 and 2013, Jalisco lost 729,000 hectares of forestland, most of it due to livestock activity and the cultivation of agave and avocado, according to Sergio Graf Montero, director the Jalisco Environment and Territorial Development Department (Semadet).