This article is part of our Design special section about how food inspires designers to make and do surprising things.

Many people look at avocados and see guacamole. An agave plant is little more than a future shot of tequila, a corn stalk the raw material for a warm tortilla.

But the Mexican designer Fernando Laposse engineers those things into the stuff of luxury furniture. Corn husks and avocado skins are diced, pressed and turned into veneers that serve as textured tabletops and wall paneling. Agave leaves are shredded into furry fibers that transform sofas and benches into playful, zoomorphic objects that invite comfy sitting — and maybe a little petting.

Mr. Laposse develops these products with a specific aim in mind: creating new markets for small-scale farmers in rural areas of the country whose operations have been squeezed out by agribusiness. Family farms are disappearing in Mexico and local economies are suffering, he said, and people in his profession can offer creative solutions to counter that.

“The philosophy of what I do in the studio is work directly with farmers, and with this environment, and find a way that design can be the motor for something else,” he said.

Mr. Laposse, who lives in Mexico City and has a degree in design from Central Saint Martins college in London, came to this conclusion rather suddenly a decade ago, he said. He was experimenting with the corn husk idea during an artist residency in Oaxaca and wanted to work with the best varieties grown in Mexico.

He knew just where to find them: Santo Domingo Tonahuixtla, a remote village located in the rolling hills of the southern state of Puebla.

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