Raúl is the Director General and co-founder of Alternativas y Procesos de Participación Social A.C (Alternatives and Social Participation Processes), a community-based development organization focusing on ecological regeneration of watersheds, ecological agriculture, development finance, and development of social enterprises. Since 1980, Raúl and his wife Gisela Herrerías Guerra have promoted sustainable regional development processes that benefit the poorest families and towns in the semi-arid region of the Mixteca, Mexico, with the support of an interdisciplinary team of around 200 people. As part of their work on ecological agriculture and amaranth production, Raúl founded the Quali Cooperative Group, a vertically integrated agribusiness sourcing organic amaranth from 88 regional producer cooperative organizations, processing and producing nutritive amaranth food products. Quali supports 1,100 smallholder producers by providing a consistently above market average price for their harvest. Raúl is also the founder of the Water Forever Museum and the Amaranth Development Program.

The work of Raúl and his team has been recognized internationally, receiving the Latin American and Caribbean Award for Water, the Slow Food Award for Defense of Biodiversity, and distinctions from the FAO and UNDP. Raúl has a degree in Philosophy from the Universidad Iberoamericana and a Doctor Honoris Causa in Social Sciences and Humanities from the Universidad Iberoamericana-Puebla.