Agave Renaissance Summit, 2023

N-Gen and the Agave Heritage Festival collaborated to convene a cross section of over 80 stakeholders connected to agave from a wide range of backgrounds. The Agave Renaissance Summit was an initial effort to have words lead to action to help shape agave production in a balanced manner in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands and beyond.

Participants self identified the topics of conversation using an open space conference model, the proceedings of which can be seen in the Proceedings report.

Perhaps the clearest theme that emerged from every session is the need to consider and engage with agave as a whole system so that efforts reflect that Agave is diversity, culture, food, fiber, microbes, health, history, and more. This approach reflects a re-centering to peoples’ long-held relationship with agave and a paradigm shift away from an over romanticization of agave as a distillate that is fraying the ecological and social fabric of agave and communities.

The next steps are many and multi-faceted. Yet, the conversations sparked at the Summit, in one of the over fifty events of the festival and in each of our own spheres, reflect a deep appreciation for the relationship between people and the agave plant that stretches back millennia. A grounding in this nuanced and long-time symbiotic connection that encompasses so many aspects of human interaction and ecological connections, provides a path forward as the fabric of this relationship is strained. It is a foundation based on holistic understanding, inclusion, livelihoods, openness to diverse perspectives, and inspiration and teachings from the object of our devotion  — the Agave.