The Joel Rivero Family

San Pedro Temamatla, Puebla, Mexico

The high valleys of Puebla have been growing beans since long before anyone thought to write it down. At this altitude, the seasons are not suggestions — they are the whole calendar. Rain comes when it comes, and you plant around it, not the other way around. It's the kind of farming that either breaks you or teaches you things no classroom can.

Joel Rivero farms this land alongside his stepfather in San Pedro Temamatla, a small community in the municipality of Chalchicomula de Sesma in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The land has been in his wife's family for three generations — passed from grandparents to children — though there was a stretch of years when it sat quiet. When Joel and his stepfather decided to bring it back, they started with Ayocote beans. "It's a very friendly, rustic seed," Joel explains, "that works really well with the type of land we have." They sought out people in the community who knew the traditional way of doing things, and to this day that's how they still do it.

How They Farm

The land is prepared the way the grandparents did it. Joel and his stepfather work one section at a time, letting the other rest. They use animal manure from the same region — no synthetic fertilizers, no chemicals of any kind. A tractor helps with some of the work now, but a horse-drawn plow still turns much of the soil. Cleaning and maintenance is done by hand. Harvest is done by people from the region. And seed selection — grain by grain — is done by members of the community, with the best seed set aside for sale and anything that doesn't make the cut going to compost or feed for the family's sheep and goats. Seed that doesn't earn its place doesn't get planted again. It's a rigorous system that happens to look, from the outside, a lot like what we now call regenerative agriculture. Joel just calls it the way his community has always farmed.

The Bean That Surprised Them

The Ayocote Medianoche has its own origin story, and it starts with a difficult year. Joel had always planted a mix of Ayocote varieties — part Medianoche, part purple — but one season when rain was especially scarce, he made a decision that turned out to be inspired. With little expectation and even less water, he mixed several Ayocote types together — purple, yellow, moro, and others — just to see what would come of it.

What came of it was extraordinary. A seed of different colors with particular spots on some of them, strikingly beautiful and, more importantly, resilient. "What we loved most is that it adapts to the seasons," Joel says. Others have tried to replicate it since. They haven't been able to. "I don't know if it's the soil, the location, the work, or the management — but thank God, that's the result we get." Now, each season, Joel plants seed that's already been selected and combined from the best of those colors, with special attention to the speckled ones.

We source our Ayocote Medianoche from the Rivero family through La Comandanta. When you cook with them you will understand what the fuss is about — they're unlike anything else in the pantry, deeply earthy with bold umami flavor that holds its own with chilis and pairs beautifully with mole. 

What Keeps Them Going

Joel is candid about the challenges. Young people from his community would rather migrate than farm the land their parents left them, which means the farmers who remain tend to be the ones who genuinely love it. Getting fair prices for their harvest is a constant struggle. Rain is unpredictable. The work is hard and it is undervalued by the market, even when the product is exceptional.

"What motivates me," Joel says, "is the recognition of our work and our product. Every time we deliver and someone tells us it's beautiful — and knowing it's going to another country — that motivates us to keep going, to keep giving our best, and to have our town known for producing the finest seed."

We're proud to be part of what keeps them going.

About La Comandanta

Primary Beans has partnered with La Comandanta, a Mexican mission-based company working directly with small family farms to rescue ancestral bean varieties at risk of disappearing. By bringing these unique heirloom varieties to your kitchen, we create sustainable income for farmers to continue traditional practices and grow these rare beans for generations to come.