Milpa and Mayan forest gardens

For a long time, the word Milpa only referred my imagination to the cultivation technique of the Native American "three sisters": corn, climbing beans and squash.

Far from the cradle of maize, in Rwanda this association is frequently practiced.

The reader will find on the site lavierebelle.org the result of my research on the culture of the three sisters. This research led me to discover on the one hand the diversity of Amerindian agricultural practices and on the other hand the singularity of the extraordinary Mayan "technique" of the Milpa.

The Mayan Milpa uses the bean-corn-squash association, but this association is only a tiny part of a complex cultural system which has the particularity of being integrated into a global tropical forest management system.

The word "milpa" is derived from the nahuatl mil-pa which means " what is sown in the fields " (mil-li "field" + -pa "towards").

In the Mexican region of Yucatan, the milpa is an evolutionary cultivated space that mixes weedy plants, naturally present in the environment, and food-producing, medicinal, condiment, textile plants, etc. introduced by humans.

Contrary to the most common agricultures that practice a seasonal and annual crop cycle, traditional Mayan agriculture practices a cycle of at least twenty years over the course of which the biodiversity cultivated and useful to humans increases. This cycle goes through three main stages:

1. from the forest to the milpa,

2. from the milpa to the forest garden,

3. from the forest garden to the forest.

In a restricted sense "Milpa" refers to the first stage of the cycle or dominates a combination of seasonal and annual plants. This plant community will be during this first cycle, the cradle of perennial plants that will gradually become dominant.

In an extended sense, the milpa is the whole technical itinerary that leaves the forest and returns to the forest.

Steps of the Milpa cycle

I. From the forest to the milpa

In the first stage of the milpa, a portion of forest is cleared and then burned to prepare a fertile open space suitable for sowing and planting.

For the first two or three years, the three Mesoamerican sisters: corn, beans and squash are grown in full sun.

Beneath the low maize canopy grows a dynamic ecosystem of grasses, tubers and plants cultivated by forest gardeners to divert pests from the main crops, improve soil nutrients and maintain soil moisture.

Step 2: From the milpa to the forest garden

In the second stage, the milpa evolves into a forest garden. Fast yielding fruit trees such as banana, plantain and papaya are planted and begin to produce after one year.

Fruit trees that need more time to produce such as avocados, mangoes, citrus, guava, corossol (Annona cherimola), bread nuts (Brosimum alicastrum)... are planted in corn, beans, squash and other annuals. They will bear fruit five years later.

III. From the garden of the forest to the forest

At the third stage, the fruit trees begin to produce. Fruit trees provide a new canopy, blocking the sun and inhibiting the undergrowth. Corn, beans and squash are no longer viable in the shade. In the middle of the fruit tree canopy, other deciduous trees such as cedar and mahogany are planted; they will mature over the next few decades.

IV Regeneration of the forest

In the fourth stage of the milpa cycle, the forest orchard garden turns into a forest garden. Deciduous trees rise above the fruit trees and create a high canopy. The milpa regenerates to resemble what it was before the forest gardener cleared and burned it two or three decades earlier. It is now a managed forest with little or no undergrowth. The forest gardener will allow the hardwood trees to grow and mature. He will be able to take trees for personal use or sell them and eventually clear them again and start the milpa cycle again.

A promising ancestral technique?

The western approach to tropical forest conservation is often based on the idea that the environment must be preserved from human presence and activity. Thus there is a separation between cultivated areas established where the forest has been cut down and disappeared, and safeguarded forests erected as areas protected from human depredation.

Contrary to the imagination of the virgin forest, recent research shows that tropical forests are rarely primary forests, in the sense that they would never have been modified by human presence. The main indication of human intervention is the dominant presence of plants with high use values, suggesting that they are remnants of garden forests.

While it is desirable that these woodlands be preserved from commercial appropriation and exploitation, it is important to realise that they are also, in most cases, highly dependent on reasoned interaction with humans who know how to take care of them.

In the case of the Maya forest, it seems that the Maya people and the forest have evolved together. This co-evolution is said to have been based on a strategy of forest resource management that respects natural processes and allows the cyclical regeneration of the forest.

The Maya thus developed an intimate and mutually beneficial relationship with the tropical forest between 8,000 and 4,000 years ago. Nomadic horticulturists, they would have modified the landscape to meet their subsistence needs. The agricultural system that the Maya developed for this purpose is the milpa cycle. This cycle works by orienting natural cycles to maximize the indigenous flora and fauna useful to humans in an artificial but perennial ecosystem.

Forest gardening is ordered in a cyclical process that creates a constantly changing landscape rich in biodiversity, dominated by trees but where annual plants useful to humans can also flourish. The Mayan milpa cycle creates an open field from a closed canopy forest. Once cleared, the space thus created can be temporarily dominated by annual crops before evolving into a managed orchard garden and then back to a closed canopy forest in a continuous cycle. Unlike other agricultural systems developed at the same time, forest fields are never abandoned, even when they are reforested. The Mayan milpa cycle is considered to be a cycle of rotation of annuals with stages of perennials and perennial trees, each phase being the object of careful management.

All facets of Mayan culture are deeply linked to the environment, in a relationship that goes far beyond mere subsistence. The Maya language shows a longstanding knowledge of forest ecology.

Until very recently, traditional studies of the Maya did not take into account the multidisciplinary data sources that inform this relationship. In his synthesis on the collapse of society, Jared Diamond, for example, postulates that in the lowlands, Mayan interactions with the surrounding forest were largely destructive in nature due to deforestation associated with agriculture. Diamond alleges that this deforestation led to the collapse of classical Mayan society. Such conclusions are based on a speculative interpretation, which excludes data from the biology, botany and agriculture of the region.

Ethnobotanists and agroecologists currently working with the Maya have a different vision of the interactions of the Maya with their environment. Their researches reveal a reasoned management of forest resources, flora and fauna. They attest to the subtleties of Maya ecological knowledge and show the existence of a long-term management model guaranteeing the sustainability of natural resources.

The Maya must be recognized as wise managers of their ecological space and not as its destroyers. This new paradigm could be an essential step in understanding how to preserve this and other tropical ecosystems now under threat.

Cultivated biodiversity in Mayan Forest Gardens

Mayan forest gardens are among the most diverse farming systems in the world. Researchers working with the El Pilar network identified about 370 species of plants grown in the 19 forest gardens they studied. Mayan milperos generate this diversity thanks to their deep traditional knowledge of plant functions and uses. They cultivate plants for food, fodder, medicine, condiments, dyes, for ritual purposes, or useful for building, or making household products, domestic objects, etc..

At the open Milpa stage (from the first to the fourth or even the seventh year) up to 70 plant species are recorded in the Milpa plots.

Apart from maize (Zea mays), beans (Phaseolus spp.) and squash and pumpkins (Cucurbita spp.), the dominant cultivated plants are :

– chili peppers (Capsicum annuumand C. spp).
– Jesuit’s tea or Mexican-tea, epazote (Chenopodium ambrosioides L.),
– chaya, a perennial shrub with edible leaves (Cnidoscolus spp),
– tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill),
– taro or elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) and (Xanthosoma yucatanense Engl.)
– okra (Abelmoschus esculentus)
– various leguminous plants

The most frequent weeds tolerated or appreciated are :

– Ambrosia spp, (Cecropia sp., Mimosa sp. (Mimosa hodurana, Mimosa pudica), Trema sp, Amaranthaceae sp Amarantus cuadatus, Amaranthus dubius)., Asteraceae, Cyperaceae, Euphorbiaceae; Melastomataceae, Poaceae, Urticaceae.

At the fast-growing perennial canopy stage (from the seventh to the fifteenth or even thirtieth year) other types of plants take the ascendancy.

Among the dominant food crops some present in Rwanda such as :

– pineapple (Ananas comosus L. Merr) ;
– soursop (also known as graviola) (Annona muricata L.) or the cherimoya (Annona cherimola) with edible fruits ;
– squash and pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo L) ,
– the papaya (Carica papaya L) with edible fruits and medicinal properties ;
– cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) a major source of calories;
– guava tree (Psidium guajava L.);
– avocado tree (Persea Americana P. Mill);
and others are only present in Central America such as :

and others are only present in Central America such as :

– bullhorn acacia (Acacia cornigera L. Wild) which produces seeds with edible pulp and medicinal substances ;
– sapodilla (Manilkara zapota L. van Royen) with edible fruit and quality timber ;
– cochineal nopal cactus (Opuntia cochenillifera L. P. Mill) with edible fruit and young snowshoes ;
– bay cedar (Guazuma ulmifolia Lam) which is a medicinal tree with edible fruits and seeds;
Red pollyhead (Hamelia patens Jacq) whose fruits are edible and medicinal,
– Mexican yam bean or Mexican turnip (Pachyrhizus erosus L.) with edible tubers ;
– allspice used as a condiment (Pimenta dioica L. Merr) ;
– the sap palm tree, with edible fruits (Pouteria sapota Jacq. Moore & Stearn) ;
– red-wood (Simira salvadorensis Standl) with edible fruits and timber producer;
– kinep with edible fruits (Talisia oliviformis Radlk).
– cohune palm (Attalea cohune) which is oleiferous and whose nut can be used as vegetable ivory ;
– bread nut or Maya Walnut (Brosimum alicastrum Sw.) whose fruit is extremely rich in fiber, calcium, potassium, folic acid, iron, zinc, protein and vitamins A, E, C and B, has nutritional properties comparable to those of soy or quinoa) ;
– savannah plum tree (Byrsonima crassifolia L. Kunth) appreciated for its fragrant fruit ;
– chaya (Cnidoscolus chayamansa McVaugh) with edible leaves;
– trumpet tree (Cecropia peltata L.) which is a fruit and medicinal tree;

Medicinal trees such as:

– gum tree (Bursera simarouba L) which produces a medicinal resin and a drink (infusion of leaves)
– guanandi (Calophyllum brasiliense Cambess)
– Kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra L.) medicinal tree and producer of fiber and timber ;

trees used in construction :

– black olive (Bucida buceras L.) a medicinal tree with insect-resistant wood,
– ear-tree (Enterolobium cyclocarpum Jacq. Griseb) , producer of termite-resistant lumber which is also a forage tree;
– red cedar (Quercus oleoides Schltdl. & Cham.) producer of hardwood ;
– sabal or bay leaf (Sabal mauritiiformis), a palm whose leaves provide an insulating and insect repellent thatch frequently used for traditional roofs.

When the Canopy is closed (after 30 years), the dominant trees are :

– Alseis yucatanensis Standley,
– Aspidosperma cruentum Woodson,
– Attalea cohune C. Mart
– Brosimum alicastrum Sw,
– Bursera simarouba L.->https://www.mayaforestgardeners.org/show-plant-photos.php?sort=p_habit&person=20&photostart=58],
– Cryosophila stauracantha Heynh. R. Evans,
– Licania platypus Hemsley Fritsch->https://www.mayaforestgardeners.org/show-plant-photos.php?sort=p_habit&person=20&photostart=75],
– Lonchocarpus castilloi Standley->https://www.mayaforestgardeners.org/show-plant-photos.php?sort=p_scientificn],
– Manilkara zapota L. van Royen,
– Piscidia piscipula L. Sarg->https://www.mayaforestgardeners.org/show-plant-photos.php?sort=p_habit&person=20&photostart=95],
– Pouteria campechiana Kunth Baehni->https://www.mayaforestgardeners.org/show-plant-photos.php?sort=p_habit&person=20&photostart=82],
– Pouteria reticulata Engl.->https://www.mayaforestgardeners.org/show-plant-photos.php?sort=p_scientificn],
– Sabal morrisiana Bartlett,
– Simira salvadorensis Standl,
– Swietenia macrophylla King,
– Talisia oliviformis Radlk,
– Vitex gaumeri Greenman,
– Zuelania guidonia Britton & Millsp

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