How Agaves Have Shaped Landscapes & Cultures in the Old Pueblo

This month, in a new proclamation, the Mayor of Tucson Regina Romero and Kevin Dahl of the City Council will celebrate the deep connections Tucsonans have with agaves, the succulents better known as century plants, mezcals and maguey. Tucson is the most diverse city in the US in terms of

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The Role of Agaves in Presilience at the Food/Water/Energy Nexus

Empowering Arid Cities in the US/Mexico Borderlands, to Use Succulent Crops in Regenerative Perennial Food Systems as Means to Reverse & Halt Climate Change     “Our challenge is not only resilience, which is the power to rebound (re- “back” + salire “to jump, leap”). Our challenge is also what

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Why Metro Tucson is the American City with the Greatest Agave Diversity

Metro Tucson harbors a minimum of 113 agave species in its streets, parks, gardens, and nurseries, more than half of all the agaves described in the world. No metro area in the world other than in Tucson (and perhaps in Mexico City’s El Pedrigal at the National Agave Collection of

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Planting the Seeds for Tomorrow: The Tumamoc Resilience Garden

The Tumamoc Resilience Garden at the base of Tumamoc Hill will be an inspirational setting where the community can have hands-on participation in how to live in the desert in a hotter and drier future. The backbone design allows passive rainwater harvesting to create an environment that supports a wide diversity of arid-adapted food

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Agaves and Slow Agriculture in the Laboratory for the Future of Food in a Climate-Changed World

As fresh water has become scarcer than ever in the Arid West, and debt and disparities threaten to dislodge farmers from the land, I have a dream. I have a dream of a sloooow agriculture. By that, I mean one that wisely fosters the careful investment of the patient capital

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