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Rooted in Place, Oriented Toward the Future The Huasteca Regenerative Agriculture Center is an intentionally local project with a global lens. Located in Ejido El Chino, in the municipality of Tamasopo in San Luis Potosí, the Center was born from a simple but urgent question: how can rural communities restore land, health, and livelihoods after decades of extractive agricultural practices, while remaining economically viable and culturally grounded? Ejido El Chino sits withi

Today, twenty environmental engineering students from the regional technical university in Ciudad Valles visited the Centro de Agricultura Regenerativa de la Huasteca (CDARH) for their water quality field practice. Accompanied by two faculty members, the students began the day with a group discussion led by CDARH staff, Amanda Lewis Vega, Jose Luis Briones Ramos, and Steven Lewis. The discussion focused on the crucial role that environmental engineers will play in addressing

The Centro de Agricultura Regenerativa de la Huasteca (CDARH) has spent over four decades acquiring and preserving around 1,500 acres of forested land in Mexico’s Eastern Sierra Madre Mountains, creating the Finca Oasis Forest Preserve. Situated in the northern region of the biodiversity-rich Veracruz Moist Forest ecoregion, CDARH acts as a hub for administrative support, material supply, tree propagation, research, and staffing for this conservation effort. The mission is fo

This month we are thrilled to announce that we have not only started manufacturing our first batches of bio-fertilizer, but that we have also started field application trials on sugar cane and in our own orchard. If you were wondering why things have been quiet in the update section, now you know! Spring has it's way of creeping in, and all of a sudden hitting with full impact. This is especially true when working on farms and ranches. Nature waits for no one! We will keep yo

One of our main goals at HRAC is to expand our research with Vetiver Systems to find innovative ways to increase groundwater recharge, mitigate pollution, and control erosion. This month we are making good use of having extra hands with our interns form the Tech de Valles to do just that. We are expanding our research with TX State University to include monitoring shorter rows of vetiver in various soli types, as well as river bank stabilization. Working with our partners in

This month, we're thrilled to launch our innovative worm composting project at the center. Over the last six + weeks, our team has meticulously crafted a palm thatch roof and subterranean worm beds, creating an optimal environment for our earthworm allies. This design ensures they remain active and efficient, transforming organic waste into premium compost even under the scorching summer sun. Our worm composting initiative is set to revolutionize our approach to waste managem

The Huasteca Regenerative Agriculture Center is adding features that allow us to demonstrate environmentally friendly soil regeneration strategies. Rather than using gas powered equipment to keep grassy areas from becoming overgrown, we have invited neighboring farmers to let horses and oxen graze the land. We work with them to position an appropriate number of animals in areas free of crops. In addition to decreasing our labor and fuel costs, the animals naturally enrich th

The predictable rainy seasons in the spring and fall of each year that benefited our region decades ago have been replaced by an unpredictable series of prolonged droughts followed by brief periods of heavy rain. The sugarcane industry that drives the regional economy is experiencing a harvest roughly 70% below the average in recent years due to dry soil conditions.. At the Huasteca Regenerative Agriculture Center we are employing multiple regenerative strategies to assist f

In June, we started the expansion of the vetiver nursery at the Huasteca Regenerative Agriculture Center. We started by trimming the plants in our existing beds to 30 cm.It is recommended that the plants be cut back like this, two to three times within the first year of growth to increase thickness of the cluster, promote side growth, and increase the quantity of tillers that we can later separate. We decide that it is more efficient to plant in ground rows rather than in bed

The Huasteca Regenerative Agriculture Center (HRAC) is poised to demonstrate the multiple uses of vetiver grass, several of which support the center’s focus on regenerative agricultural practices. In conjunction with Terra Advocati and Texas State University (TSU), the center was awarded a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Scientific Cooperation Research Program grant under which we collect research data on the ability of vetiver to reduce the flow of agrochemic

The vetiver rows designated for our research project are well established at the Huasteca Regenerative Research Center (HRRC), and data collection is slated to begin in March of this year. Our research will tell us how well vetiver serves as a barrier to erosion and the flow of agrochemicals into the nearby river. Most of the materials and equipment needed to conduct our research are now in place at the HRRC, and practice data collection begins in February. Vetiver is very h

Late last year, I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel with 4 others to judge video submissions for the Vetiver Network International's Short Video Competition. There were 34 submissions in total, from all around the world. It was a true pleasure, and a great way to see all of the amazing work that is being done with Vetiver Grass , a Climate Smart Technology. Cont... The categories were: Community, disaster mitigation, soil and water conservation, phytoremediation, agricu

The Huasteca Regenerative Research Center (HRRC) is located in an agricultural region dominated by a sugar cane monoculture. Failure to adopt soil preservation strategies has left farmers heavily dependent on chemical fertilizers to provide soil nitrogen. Experimentation at the center includes the introduction of plants that directly or indirectly fix nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen fixing legumes including sun hemp (Crotalaria juncea) and pigeon peas (Cajanus cajan) grow well

Soil moisture readings at the Huasteca Regenerative Research Center (HRRC) show that the weekly flooding of swales is giving us desired soil moisture readings. The dry season is getting underway in the Huasteca region of East Central Mexico, and that usually leads to a progressive decline in soil moisture. Workers at the center pump water up from the nearby river and it flows through our recently installed water infrastructure to the level contoured swales and berms. Soil mo

Planting of the fourth experimental row of vetiver grass is well underway and this paves the way for the start of data collection early next year at the Huasteca Regenerative Research Center (HRRC) . In October and November, the first three of four vetiver rows were planted in support of the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service grant undertaken with Terra Advocati and Texas State University . Data collected will support research on the effectiveness of vetiver rows in reducing

International collaborators Amanda and Sofia Lewis were welcomed by the local community at a congenial event held at the Huasteca Regenerative Research Center (HRRC) on 4 December. Amanda and Sofia Lewis are agriculture majors from Texas A&M university who were born in the community where the center is located. The event provided them with an opportunity to reconnect with their roots and show support for the center’s activities. About 70 rural community members were in atten

Last month Bryan Hummel came down to the Huasteca Regenerative Research Center to help us get the land prepped on contour. With his trusty laser level in one hand and an azadone (hoe) in the other, Bryan helped us flag out all of the contour lines on the land. He worked with locals to plow the field with oxen and coordinate the finishing hand work. This land preparation sets us up to start our vetiver plantings, and start our polycrop food forest. We are extremely thankful

Last week we had the pleasure of meeting Antonio Carillo Bolea in the Los Tuxtlas region of Southern Veracruz.   We had spoken a couple of times prior to our trip about Vetiver, hydrologic keyline design, agroecology, permaculture, and many other more philosophical topics. It was clear to me that Antonio was doing amazing work in the Tuxtlas region.   He invited us down to see his projects, explore around them, and meet some like-minded restorationists doing similar projects

Working with our partners in Mexico at the Huasteca Regenerative Research Center and Texas State University , Terra Advocati has been awarded a Scientific Cooperation Research Program (SCRP) grant through the USDA Department of Foreign Agriculture Service . Check out this video presentation that explains the research project in detail! Check out this video that explains what Vetiver Grass is, and some of its many uses!

PRESS RELEASE FROM USDA FAS WEBSITE: SEE ARTICLE "WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2022 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service is awarding $300,000 to six U.S. universities – including three minority-serving institutions – for research and educational partnerships focused on climate-smart agriculture in tropical countries, FAS Administrator Daniel Whitley announced today. FAS is awarding the funds under the Scientific Cooperation Research Program (SCRP) . “