The world is at a decisive moment: the climate crisis and water scarcity threaten the stability of production systems and global food security. In this scenario, sugarcane in Mexico, cultivated on about 120,000 hectares with the participation of more than 40,000 associated producers, stands out as both a strategic crop and one highly intensive in water use. The national sugar market faces a context of strong regulatory pressure, competition for water resources, and growing sustainability expectations from consumers and investors. The continuation of the current furrow irrigation model, with efficiencies of barely 35%, not only compromises the sector’s profitability but also the availability of water in critical basins.
The project’s response is a transformative bet: migrating to automated subsurface drip irrigation systems capable of surpassing 90% efficiency, integrating underground pipes, pressure-compensated emitters, control valves, centralized filtration, and real-time digital monitoring. This innovation goes beyond improving irrigation techniques; it redefines the relationship between agriculture and water, shifting from an extractive model to a regenerative one. The impact is striking: in the 7,500 prioritized hectares, annual savings are estimated at more than 78.5 million m³ of water, equivalent to the domestic consumption of more than 1.5 million people. At the same time, yields could increase by up to 50%, generating greater economic stability for producers and ensuring a more robust supply for the market.
The project’s raison d’être lies in protecting strategic basins, reducing agricultural and industrial pollutant discharges, and strengthening rural communities’ resilience against droughts and climate variability. Various actors are engaged: the project developer as the organizer, specialized technology providers, producers as direct implementers, and external verifiers ensuring transparency of results. All of this is framed under governance that guarantees additionality, intentionality, and traceability, aligned with the Water Positive vision and with VWBA and WQBA methodologies. The project not only delivers technical efficiency but also sets a new standard of sustainability and competitiveness for the Mexican agroindustry.
The current challenge is clear and complex: sugarcane, a crop with extremely high water demand and great economic importance, is produced mostly with furrow irrigation, a technique that barely reaches efficiencies of 35% to 60%. This means that more than half of the water applied is lost through evaporation, runoff, or deep percolation, increasing pressure on strategic basins such as Papaloapan, Lerma, Chapala, and Grijalva, Usumacinta. Added to this are diffuse pollution from fertilizer and pesticide leaching, industrial effluent discharges without adequate treatment, and growing climate variability that intensifies prolonged droughts and extreme rainfall. Under these conditions, maintaining the current scheme is not viable: competition among agricultural, urban, and industrial users is increasingly intense, and environmental regulation demands greater efficiency and control.
The opportunity lies in migrating to a precision agriculture model based on subsurface drip irrigation, with controlled fertigation and treatment systems in mills that reuse wastewater. The proposed technology delivers water and nutrients directly to the root zone, achieving efficiencies above 90% and drastically reducing losses and polluted runoff. The expected technical impact is substantial: annual savings of more than 78.5 million m³, yield increases of up to 50%, improved crop quality, and significant reduction of contaminants entering water bodies.
In the short term, benefits translate into immediate water savings and lower operating costs for producers; in the medium term, the model is consolidated as a replicable reference on thousands of hectares in Mexico and abroad; and in the long term, the resilience of the value chain is strengthened against droughts, climate variability, and regulatory pressure. Technological, financial, and community allies will be the protagonists of this transformation, positioning themselves as leaders in the transition toward a regenerative agroindustry aligned with ESG goals, international certifications, and Water Positive principles of additionality, traceability, and intentionality.
The main technical solution consists of migrating 7,500 hectares of sugarcane from the furrow irrigation system to a highly precise automated subsurface drip irrigation scheme. This system incorporates pressure-compensated emitters, underground distribution pipes, pressure control valves, filtration stations, and management software that allows irrigation and fertigation to be scheduled exactly according to the physiological needs of the plant. Controlled fertigation uses the irrigation network to efficiently dose nutrients, reducing leaching losses and improving crop absorption. At the industrial level, the solution is complemented with treatment plants in sugar mills to recover and reuse wastewater in agricultural irrigation or internal processes, ensuring that effluents discharged comply with Mexican and international environmental standards.
This technology was selected after a comparative analysis with alternatives such as surface pressurized irrigation or improving furrow channels, which were discarded due to their lower hydraulic efficiencies and higher evaporation losses. With the potential to save more than 50% of applied water volume and significant improvements in water quality returned to basins, the solution directly addresses problems of overconsumption and diffuse pollution. Identified operational risks include pump system failures, emitter clogging, and low initial adoption by some producers; these will be mitigated through intensive training, redundant energy and water systems, shared financing plans, and permanent technical assistance schemes. Environmentally, risks derived from climate variability are addressed with adaptive irrigation scheduling systems, digital monitoring of soil moisture and flow, and predictive models based on climatic data. Resilience is supported by preventive and corrective maintenance protocols, IoT traceability with remote control platforms, and external validation under VWBA standards. Replicability is broad: any sugarcane basin in Mexico or Latin America can adopt this model, provided regulatory and financial frameworks support agricultural modernization, making it a benchmark for innovation and sustainability in the sector.
The main technical solution consists of migrating 7,500 hectares of sugarcane from the furrow irrigation system to a highly precise automated subsurface drip irrigation scheme. This system incorporates pressure-compensated emitters, underground distribution pipes, pressure control valves, filtration stations, and management software that allows irrigation and fertigation to be scheduled exactly according to the physiological needs of the plant. Controlled fertigation uses the irrigation network to efficiently dose nutrients, reducing leaching losses and improving crop absorption. At the industrial level, the solution is complemented with treatment plants in sugar mills to recover and reuse wastewater in agricultural irrigation or internal processes, ensuring that effluents discharged comply with Mexican and international environmental standards.
This technology was selected after a comparative analysis with alternatives such as surface pressurized irrigation or improving furrow channels, which were discarded due to their lower hydraulic efficiencies and higher evaporation losses. With the potential to save more than 50% of applied water volume and significant improvements in water quality returned to basins, the solution directly addresses problems of overconsumption and diffuse pollution. Identified operational risks include pump system failures, emitter clogging, and low initial adoption by some producers; these will be mitigated through intensive training, redundant energy and water systems, shared financing plans, and permanent technical assistance schemes. Environmentally, risks derived from climate variability are addressed with adaptive irrigation scheduling systems, digital monitoring of soil moisture and flow, and predictive models based on climatic data. Resilience is supported by preventive and corrective maintenance protocols, IoT traceability with remote control platforms, and external validation under VWBA standards. Replicability is broad: any sugarcane basin in Mexico or Latin America can adopt this model, provided regulatory and financial frameworks support agricultural modernization, making it a benchmark for innovation and sustainability in the sector.
The project consists of the comprehensive modernization of 7,500 hectares of sugarcane, shifting from furrow irrigation to automated subsurface drip systems with high-precision fertigation, complemented by effluent treatment plants in mills to guarantee safe water reuse. From a technical standpoint, the model integrates pressurized distribution infrastructure, underground pipes, pressure-compensated emitters, control valves, filtration stations, moisture and flow sensors connected to digital management and remote monitoring platforms. The design ensures that each drop applied reaches the root zone directly, optimizing nutrient absorption and reducing losses. At the industrial level, mills will implement physical and biological purification processes to recycle effluents and ensure discharges in compliance with Mexican and international environmental standards, such as NOM-001-SEMARNAT and WHO water quality guidelines.
Its relevance lies in reversing the historical pattern of water overconsumption and pollution in the sugarcane agroindustry, transforming an intensive, linear scheme into a circular, resilient, and sustainable one. Expected results include annual savings of more than 78 million m³ of water, substantial reduction of polluted runoff and leachates, yield increases of up to 50%, and social benefits for around 40,000 associated producers, who will see reduced operating costs and improved competitiveness. In addition, the project incorporates technical training schemes and permanent assistance to ensure correct adoption and maintenance of the technology in the field.
Strategically, the project positions itself as a Water Positive benchmark by providing quantifiable benefits to SDGs 2, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, and 17, strengthening its reputation, license to operate, and access to markets that demand increasingly strict ESG standards. The model is replicable in any sugarcane region of the world and scalable thanks to its physical and digital traceability under VWBA, ensuring independent validation and permanence of benefits. Its final impact will be a more resource-efficient agroindustry, more resilient rural communities, and healthier basins, proving that the sweetness of sugar can also mean sustainability and shared responsibility.
