Purpose and Vision
Agave Nation encompasses an ecosystem of plants, animals, humans, and microbes inhabiting the drylands and mountains of Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, sustained by the symbiotic relationship between agave plants and bats as keystone species. The people of Agave Nation are participants in an innovative cooperative that brings together agave growers, producers of agave spirits, scientists, artisans, rural and Indigenous communities, conservation and restoration organizations, and others to cultivate a holistic, regenerative supply chain for the production and protection of agave – and build a functional restoration economy at a commercial scale.
Through a shared vision and a commitment to the creation of common economic benefit, Agave Nation provides the foundation for creating products derived from agave that offer consumers a real opportunity to exercise their individual values and beliefs – linking commercial markets to ecological regeneration, cultural continuity, and local prosperity. To that end, Agave Nation is designed to operate alongside and in relationship with commercial partners, coordinating a holistic, values-aligned supply chain for those partners while maintaining independence and integrity in its values, standards, and decision-making.
The ecosystems that sustain these landscapes have been significantly degraded by the impacts of more than 250 years of grazing pressure, resource extraction, and commercial exploitation of a small subset of agave species. Our collective work is built on a belief that regenerative cultivation of both wild and farmed agave can support the restoration and protection of these landscapes – and the recognition that lasting change requires long-term commitments, cross-border coordination, and shared accountability across the full value chain. We envision a future in which:
Through cooperative action, science-based stewardship, and fair participation in a shared value chain spanning seeds, science, stewardship, and spirits, we work together to restore agave landscapes, sustain wildlife and pollinators, and support the livelihoods and traditions of the communities that depend on them.
Core Values
The members of Agave Nation are united by a set of shared core values. However, we also recognize that we are undertaking a complex, long-term human endeavor – and that our members are attempting to plan, work, and earn their livelihoods within a context of degraded landscapes, entrenched industries built on long-standing practices and narratives, and challenging economic conditions that will limit what we can realistically achieve, and how quickly we can change.
We cannot start by being perfect, but we are each committed to using these shared values as a guide to navigate inevitable challenges, and a standard against which to measure our actions. By acknowledging and learning from tradeoffs, we will hold ourselves accountable when we cannot meet our goals, and will continuously improve our strategy and our practices as we work together to build a real-world restoration economy.
1. Communities, Livelihoods, and Shared Stewardship
We believe there is no conservation without people. Agave landscapes are shaped and sustained by the communities who live and work within them, and long-term restoration depends on their leadership, participation, and wellbeing. Agave Nation is built as a cooperative effort in which producers, artisans, land stewards, communities, practitioners, and scientists are co-creators of a shared value chain, working together to advance ecological, cultural, economic, and climate adaptation outcomes.
We are committed to:
- • Supporting dignified, sustainable livelihoods rooted in agave landscapes
- • Ensuring producer and community participation and shared decision-making
- • Fostering long-term relationships that build trust, capacity, local leadership, and long-term stewardship
- • Creating economic systems that reinforce stewardship rather than extraction
- • Strengthening a shared identity and sense of responsibility for the landscapes that sustain us
2. Regeneration, Conservation, and Biodiversity
We are committed to restoring and sustaining the ecosystems in which agaves thrive, the nectar-feeding bats that are symbiotically connected to them, and the diversity of other species that inhabit those landscapes, recognizing that the long life cycles of this plant and its interconnection with other species require restoration over decades. Our mutual supply chain will support long-term stewardship, prioritizing long-term ecosystem function over short-term yield.
Taken together, this shared value chain will contribute to:
- • Promoting the use of regenerative practices in the production of both wild and domesticated plant materials
- • Preserving genetic diversity of agave species in both cultivation and restoration
- • Enriching wild agave populations, biodiversity, and conservation
- • Improving soil and watershed health
- • Supporting pollinator corridors and wildlife habitat
3. Science-Based and Place-Based Stewardship
To restore agave landscapes effectively, we are committed to supporting and ensuring the protection and restoration of the right plants, in the right places, at the right times. Our approach is grounded in multiple ways of knowing, and integrates western science, local and traditional ecological knowledge, lived experiences, and adaptive management to guide action and improve outcomes over time.
We are committed to:
- • Using the best available science in collaboration with scientific partners, while elevating and integrating local and traditional ecological knowledge and lived experiences
- • Co-developing practices and research with communities and land stewards
- • Supporting research that advances relevant knowledge and understanding of agave ecosystems and the species and human systems that depend on them
- • Monitoring ecological outcomes and sharing data transparently
- • Applying adaptive management that reflects learning from multiple knowledge systems
4. Cultural Respect and Traditional Knowledge
Agave landscapes and spirits traditions – and other Indigenous uses of agave in medicine, fiber, and food – are the result of centuries of cultural knowledge, practice, and identity that must be respected.
Our shared value chain is committed to:
- • Respecting Indigenous sovereignty and traditional land stewardship
- • Honoring artisanal production practices and knowledge systems
- • Protecting cultural heritage associated with agave landscapes, including culturally significant genetics such as pre-contact agave domesticates
- • Recognizing the right of producers and communities to guide, approve, or decline activities affecting their lands, livelihoods, and cultural practices
5. Economic Fairness, Shared Value, and Trust
The cooperative is intended to correct extractive market structures and leverage the commercial scale of its public benefit company partner to provide stable, long-term relationships that return value to the ground.
We are committed to:
- • Establishing long-term purchasing relationships
- • Living wages and fair compensation for producers and workers
- • Equitable sharing of value across the supply chain
- • Reinvestment in restoration, science, and community capacity as part of a regenerative supply chain
- • Leveraging the collective network and shared revenues to identify, secure, and deploy public, philanthropic, and mission-aligned capital in support of restoration, stewardship, sustainable development, and science
6. Collective Action at Scale
We believe meaningful impact requires coordination across actors and geographies.
We commit to:
- • Working at the landscape scale that migratory nectar-feeding bats requires
- • Aligning efforts to avoid duplication and fragmentation
- • Building shared infrastructure (knowledge, funding, relationships)
- • Supporting mutually reinforcing activities across the network
7. Setting New Standards
These collective efforts are designed to support diverse value chains that embody a real commitment to integrity, transparency, and a process of ongoing improvement that builds towards shared values. We seek to demonstrate and establish a new standard in the spirits industry and other agave-related enterprises that is built upon:
- • Honest representation of products and practices, with transparency and traceability in the supply chain
- • Commercial success driving conservation and livelihood outcomes
- • Transparent reporting of ecological and social outcomes
- • Continuously improving practices and addressing gaps
- • Building a narrative that honors and values the work of our members, and builds trust and enthusiasm among consumers to join and fuel the engine of a restoration economy
Ownership and Governance Structure
Agave Nation provides the essential infrastructure for a cooperative network and agricultural exchange that connects and supports actors across the agave value chain. The cooperative provides several key functions: a platform for communication, knowledge-sharing, and coordinated action among the communities and commercial actors who grow, harvest, and produce agave and agave products, the organizations working to preserve and restore landscapes, native plants, nectar-feeding bats, and other species, and the scientists and Indigenous communities seeking to generate and preserve both new and traditional knowledge; establishing and facilitating mutually beneficial, long-term, and sustainable economic relationships among its members, while providing a standards-setting and accountability body for regenerative agave systems; and a mechanism to capture, scale, and direct revenues from commercial activity back to the collective and to build value on the ground.
Many of the network’s key functions are supported by Sin Nombre, Inc. – a public benefit corporation that is a founding member of Agave Nation. As a mission-driven public benefit corporation, Sin Nombre provides a commercial platform that connects Agave Nation’s regenerative supply chain to a unique, well-recognized mezcal and tequila brand aligned with emerging consumer values. Sin Nombre provides long-term offtake, marketing, and distribution to achieve broad, at-scale market access for local artisanal producers on favorable terms, captures and scales downstream commercial revenue, and then returns and leverages a significant portion of those revenues to benefit producers, growers and harvesters, and the broader value chain and membership of Agave Nation. Those revenues return to the collective through Agave Nation LLC – a dedicated public benefit limited liability company that provides basic administrative, technical support, and fiscal services to the network and its members, and distributes commercial revenues in support of projects and programs across the landscapes and communities of Agave Nation.
To guide and direct those efforts and the use of collective revenues, leadership of the network is lodged in the Agave Nation Working Group, composed of representatives of the members, with coordination provided by a small Steering Committee. In its early phases of establishment and growth, the members of the Working Group and Steering Committee are self-selected representatives from each of the various NGOs, producers, scientific advisors, and representatives of the public benefit company and public benefit LLC. Over time, as the network grows, this will transition to a model in which individual representatives are selected by members within particular categories – growers, harvesters, artisanal producers, scientists, Indigenous communities, restoration and conservation organizations, and the public benefit companies – to ensure that the Working Group reflects the different perspectives and concerns of Agave Nation members.
The Working Group, which meets monthly, is primarily responsible for discussing, developing, maintaining, and leading the implementation of a collective “Cooperative Strategy” for Agave Nation that identifies and targets the highest-priority initiatives and issues of concern to the membership. Dedicated subcommittees are formed around the individual work streams defined by the Cooperative Strategy; these include self-selected members of the Working Group, together with any other interested members of Agave Nation or outside experts and advisors retained in support – including, for example, the establishment and refinement of shared standards and best practices developed under the Charter.
The Working Group also reviews projects and programs connected to the Cooperative Strategy and related funding needs and requests; it then recommends and approves budgets for the distribution and expenditure of commercial revenues passing through Agave Nation LLC, or from other funding developed by the network in support of the Cooperative Strategy. Agave Nation LLC provides the necessary staffing to support those expenditures, other administrative needs, and day-to-day coordination, communications, and data sharing among members and the Working Group, and is responsible for provisioning outside technical assistance where needed expertise cannot be sourced within the network.
Participation and Rules of Engagement
Agave Nation welcomes and includes agave growers and harvesters; agave spirits producers; rural and Indigenous communities and land stewards; NGOs and conservation and restoration practitioners; scientists and academic partners; and funders and commercial partners. Members may participate at different levels, ranging from access to shared information and education, to using and supporting the cooperative’s infrastructure, to serving on its governing bodies.
Participation is voluntary and based on an agreement to uphold the Charter and its core values; commitment to meeting or working towards common standards, including willingness to improve and engage in shared learning and accountability; and adherence to the following basic rules of engagement.
1. Respect and Good Faith
Members engage with mutual respect, openness to diverse perspectives, and commitment to constructive dialogue.
2. Autonomy with Alignment
Members may pursue independent activities, including partnerships with each other, even if the benefits of those partnerships are not shared across the broader network. However, all activities conducted under the Agave Nation umbrella must meet its standards, and members may not represent or utilize their participation in the network in ways that contradict its values.
3. Monitoring, Reporting, and Validation
Wherever feasible, ecological and social outcomes are tracked by our members using shared indicators defined as part of the Working Strategy. Third-party or scientific partners may support data collection and verification, and provide necessary technical expertise.
4. Transparency Between Commercial and Cooperative Entities
Both commercial and non-commercial participants in Agave Nation are committed to maintaining transparency with regard to their roles and relationships with each other, and with regard to how revenue flows back to support projects and programs, to individual members of the cooperative, and to create benefits for local communities.
5. Conflict Resolution
When conflicts arise, they are expected to be managed through direct dialogue between parties, mediation through agreed facilitators or other members as needed, and escalation to the Working Group if unresolved.
6. Accountability
Agave Nation is committed to real accountability among its membership – not just shared language. Members must adhere to these rules of engagement, and they must meet baseline requirements, including:
- • Adherence to common standards for ecological stewardship, social equity, and sustainable production – or a sincere commitment to improve and adapt current practices to meet those standards over a reasonable timeframe
- • Commitment to transparency and data sharing related to Agave Nation’s natural resource management objectives
- • These minimum standards will be defined and refined over time by the Agave Nation Working Group through continued investment in science and ongoing community input
Failure to meet minimum standards and practices may result in corrective action plans, suspension, or removal from the network at the direction of the Agave Nation Working Group.