Tag: milpa

Flowers, learning, and a gender-based approach

Written by Julian Bañuelos-Uribe on April 23, 2024. Posted in Blogs.

Gender and social inclusion are fundamental themes for the Latin American regional initiative AgriLac Resiliente, which is why numerous regions bordering Guatemala and Honduras have been selected to implement priority actions with a gender approach.

In order to integrate a guideline that clears up why gender and social inclusiveness are relevant matters and incorporate it in all InnovaHubs activities in Guatemala and Honduras, social inclusion and gender experts from AgriLac have implemented a participatory process in the South Pacific and Chiapas Hubs to gather information and document research results to facilitate the Hub model for replication, developed by CIMMYT in Mexico and other countries.

In this way, Alejandrina Garcia in Oaxaca, Alejandro Ramirez in Chiapas, and Angela Meentzan, head of the AgriLac Gender and Social Inclusion Team, conducted individual and group interviews to learn how the different actors involved in the hubs perceived their own participation: farmers, workers, managers, and staff of the hubs, as well as partners who participated in this participatory process.

There are numerous and successful cases of rural women’s participation in the centers of Oaxaca and Chiapas that have been collected in this process. “It is expected that these case studies will become part of an annex to the guideline, just to illustrate why the participation of rural women is essential in their own vision,” said Meentzen, who highlights the case of Juanita, a Tzeltal woman from La Providencia in Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico.

“About five years ago, I started working alongside CIMMYT. Before we knew them, we were only planting maize and beans, but then we couldn’t produce any more. The plants stopped growing, and we had a lot of problems with pests, so we used to burn all the stubble. When the engineers came, they invited us to join them. At first, we weren’t that interested, but we let them teach us. They taught us how to grow other crops like sunflowers, peanuts, vegetables, and fruit trees like lemon and soursop,” said Juanita.

“Now we don’t burn all the stubble and we have crops all year round. We also grow other types of plants and use a lot of organic products that they taught us how to prepare. Our production has increased, and we sell more and more at the market. My daughter and I take care of the sale of the crops: beans, corn, vegetables, squash, corn, and flowers; the latter have given us such good results that we have earned some extra money,” said Juanita.

“The benefits we got from our land allowed us to give our children a future. Some of them have graduated from college and have jobs; others are about to graduate, but they have all learned to work the land. It feels a little harder, but I have been able to take care of both: my family and the land. I don’t know how I did it, but I did it,” said Juanita proudly, noting that the scientific knowledge gained from the research platform and Hub modules has had a real and positive impact on her and her family.

Photo: Juanita, a Tzeltal woman from La Providencia in Ocosingo, Chiapas, stands in her field. (Garcia, Ramirez and Meentzen/CIMMYT)

A farmer holds a maize ear. (Photo: Cristian Reyna)

Classic milpa maize intercrop can help feed communities forgotten by development

Written by Mike Listman on February 12, 2021. Posted in News.

The traditional milpa intercrop — in which maize is grown together with beans, squash, or other vegetable crops — can furnish a vital supply of food and nutrients for marginalized, resource-poor communities in the Americas, according to a study published today in Nature Scientific Reports.

One hectare of a milpa comprising maize, common beans, and potatoes can provide the annual carbohydrate needs of more than 13 adults, enough protein for nearly 10 adults, and adequate supplies of many vitamins and minerals, according to the study. The research was based on data from nearly 1,000 households across 59 villages of the Western Highlands of Guatemala and is the first to relate milpa intercropping diversity with nutritional capacity, using multiple plots and crop combinations.

“The milpa was the backbone of pre-Columbian agriculture in North America, Mexico, and Central America,” said Santiago López-Ridaura, specialist in agricultural systems and climate change adaptation at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the article.

“Milpa production anchored around locally-adapted maize is still an essential food and nutritional lifeline for isolated, often indigenous communities throughout Mexico and Central America, and can be tailored to improve their food and nutritional security, along with that of small-scale farmers in similar settings,” he added.

Maize for feed or food and nutrition?

In modern times, some 1 billion tons of maize are harvested yearly from about 200 million hectares worldwide. Much of this output results from intensive monocropping of hybrids that yield an average 10 tons per hectare, in places like the U.S.

This massive world harvest goes chiefly for animal feed, corn starch, corn syrup, ethanol, and myriad industrial products, but in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia, maize remains a critical food staple, often grown by smallholder farmers with yields averaging around 1.5 tons per hectare.

The Western Highlands of Guatemala is among the world’s poorest regions — a mountainous area ill-served by markets and where communities battered by food insecurity and malnutrition sow crops at altitudes of up to 3,200 meters, according to Cristian A. Reyna-Ramírez, a co-author of the study from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco, Mexico.

“Fully two-thirds of farmers in this region grow milpas based on maize but varying the intercrops with potatoes, faba bean, and even fruit trees,” Reyna-Ramírez said. “Our study showed that combinations such as maize-common bean-faba bean, maize-potatoes, and maize-common bean-potatoes provided the most carbohydrates, proteins, zinc, iron, calcium, potassium, folate, thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, niacin and vitamin C.”

The classic “milpa” intercrop comprises maize, beans, and squash. The bean plant climbs the maize stalk to reach sunlight and its roots add nitrogen to the soil; the squash leaves shade the soil, conserving moisture and inhibiting weed growth. Milpa systems are often grown on steep hillsides at a wide range of altitudes. (Photo: Cristian Reyna)

Better diets and routes out of poverty?

With typical landholdings of less than a quarter hectare and households averaging six members, Guatemala’s Western Highlands inhabitants cannot depend on the milpa alone to satisfy their needs, López-Ridaura cautioned.

“As with many smallholder farm communities, lack of land and general marginalization traps them in a vicious circle of poverty and malnutrition, forcing them to experiment with risky cash crops or for working-age members to undertake dangerous and heartbreaking migrations to find work and send back remittances,” he explains.

According to López-Ridaura, this study points the way for tailoring milpa systems to help communities that still rely on that intercrop or others that could benefit from its use.

Looking forward

Natalia Palacios Rojas, CIMMYT maize quality and nutrition expert and a co-author of this article, notes that calculations of this and other milpa studies consider raw nutrients and that research is needed on the nutritional contributions of cooked food and non-milpa foods such as poultry, livestock, home-garden produce, and purchased food.

“Further work should also address the effects of storing milpa produce on its nutrient stability and how the seasonal availability of milpa crops impacts diets and nutrition,” Palacios said.

The authors are grateful for funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, under the Buena Milpa project, as well as the support of the CGIAR Research Program on Maize.

Read the full article:
Maize intercropping in the milpa system. Diversity, extent and importance for nutritional security in the Western Highlands of Guatemala

Include small indigenous production systems to improve rural livelihoods

Written by Mary Donovan on February 4, 2020. Posted in Press releases.

Maize-bean intercrop in the milpa system of the western highlands of Guatemala. (Photo: Carlos Gonzalez Esquivel)

Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, United States, and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Texcoco, Mexico, describe why it is important for technical assistance to build upon indigenous farming knowledge and include women if programs are to succeed in tackling poverty and hunger in rural, Mesoamerican communities. Their findings, describing recent work in the Guatemalan Highlands, are recently published in Nature Sustainability.

According to government figures, 59% of Guatemalans live in poverty, concentrated in indigenous rural areas, such as the Western Highlands. Many factors contribute to pervasive malnutrition and a lack of employment opportunities for people in the Highlands. Recent crop failures associated with atypical weather events have exacerbated food shortages for Highland farm communities.

In early 2019, 90% of recent migrants to the southern border of the United States were from Guatemala, a majority of those from regions such as the Western Highlands. When they are unable to produce or purchase enough food to feed their families, people seek opportunities elsewhere. Historically, sugar cane and coffee industries offered employment but as prices for these commodities fall, fewer options for work are available within the region.

Indigenous peoples in the Highlands have been using a traditional agricultural production system called milpa for thousands of years. The milpa system involves growing maize together with climbing beans, squash, and other crops on a small plot of land. The maize plants support the growth of the climbing beans; the beans enrich soil through biological nitrogen fixation; and squash and other crops protect the soil from erosion, retain water, and prevent weeds.

However, frequent crop failures, declining farm sizes, and other factors result in low household production, forcing families to turn to non-agricultural sources of income or assistance from a family member working abroad. Studies have shown that as household income declines, dietary diversity decreases, which exacerbates undernutrition.

In prior decades, technical assistance for agriculture in Central America focused on larger farms and non-traditional export crops. The researchers recommend inclusion of indigenous communities to enhance milpa systems. Nutrition and employment options can be improved by increasing crop diversity and adopting improved seed varieties that are adapted to the needs of the local communities. This approach requires investments that recognize and advance ancestral knowledge and the role of indigenous women in milpa systems. The Nature Sustainability commentary highlights that technical assistance needs to include women and youth and should increase resilience in production systems to climate change, related weather events, pests, and disease.

“Improving linkages among local farmers, extensionists, students, and researchers is critical to identify and implement opportunities that result in more sustainable agricultural landscapes,” said Keith Kline, senior researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “For example, improved bean varieties have been developed that provide high-yields and disease resistance, but if they grow too aggressively, they choke out other milpa crops. And successful adoption of improved varieties also depends on whether flavor and texture meet local preferences.”

Strengthening institutions to improve agricultural development, health care, security, education can help create stronger livelihoods and provide the Western Highlands community with a foundation for healthier families and economic stability. As more reliable options become available to feed one’s family, fewer Guatemalans will feel pressured to leave home.

PUBLICATION:

“Enhance indigenous agricultural systems to reduce migration”

INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:

Santiago Lopez-Ridaura, Senior Scientist, CIMMYT

FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT THE MEDIA TEAM:

Rodrigo Ordóñez, Communications Manager, CIMMYT.
r.ordonez@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004 ext. 1167.

Ricardo Curiel, Communications Officer, CIMMYT.
r.curiel@cgiar.org, +52 (55) 5804 2004 ext. 1144.

ABOUT CIMMYT:

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.

Members of the association pose with CIMMYT staff that helped facilitate the creation of the group. (Photo: ProMaíz Nativo)

New association formed to support smallholder native maize farmers in Mexico

Written by Jennifer Johnson on July 8, 2019. Posted in Features. 3 Comments on New association formed to support smallholder native maize farmers in Mexico

Expert Mexican scientists and farmer cooperatives have formed a non-profit organization to support small-scale landrace maize farmers who continue to conserve and plant seeds of their own native heirloom varieties. The civil association, known as ProMaíz Nativo, intends to work collaboratively on projects to improve the lives of native maize and milpa farm families. Group members include national and internationally recognized maize experts, ethnobotanists, socioeconomists, food and nutrition scientists, marketing experts, maize farmers and farmer groups.

The civil association has also created a collective trademark, Milpaiz, which can be used by farmers to demonstrate the authenticity of the native maize varieties they grow and sell. This trademark will certify that a farmer’s maize is native to their community and derived from their continuous selection of seed. It will also certify that it is grown by small farmers and that they are selling only the surplus of their crops after feeding their own family. The trademark will also make a transparent effort to connect these farmers to a culinary market which values the quality, rarity and history of their production.

“Mexico is the center of origin of maize, and home to much of its genetic diversity. This initiative will allow us to certify that products are truly landrace maize from smallholder farmers, so that the benefits reach the smallholder farmers that have provided us with this biodiversity,” said Flavio Aragón, a genetic resources researcher with Mexico’s National Institute for Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research (INIFAP).

Members of the association gather for a photo at the launch event. (Photo: ProMaíz Nativo)

Researchers like Aragon, members of farmer groups and local chefs attended the official launch of ProMaíz Nativo on June 14, 2019, at the World Trade Center in Mexico City, during restaurant trade fair ExpoRestaurantes.

Edelmira Linares, ethnobotanist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and member of the association, emphasized that the collective trademark Milpaiz covers all crops grown in the traditional milpa intercrop farming system in Mexico: maize, beans, squash, edible greens, amaranth, pumpkin seeds, and certain vegetables.

“The trademark will make it easier for income to reach the farmers, will allow smallholder farmers to sell their products in supermarkets and to have a legal presence,” said Amanda Galvez, a food chemist at UNAM and president of ProMaíz Nativo.

Traditional milpa products: native maize, beans, squash, chilies and other local fruits and vegetables. (Photo: Martha Willcox/CIMMYT)

Fair and sustainable market growth

Many smallholder farmers continue to plant the same native maize varieties that their parents and grandparents planted, developed in their villages and regions and improved by farmer selection dating back to their ancestors. These varieties are prized by their local communities for their unique flavors, colors, texture and use in special dishes — and the global culinary community is catching on. Native maize, or landraces, have become extremely popular with chefs and consumers in the past few years, drawing attention and imports from across the world. However, increased demand can mean increased vulnerability for farmers.

Many maize experts in Mexico were concerned with how to best support and protect smallholder farmers navigating this increase in demand. Without guidelines and transparency, it is difficult to ensure that farmers are being fairly compensated for their traditional maize, or that they are able to save enough to feed their own families.

In a discerning culinary market, a symbol of certification such as the collective trademark could serve to differentiate the families who have long been the guardians of these native varieties from larger commercial farmers who acquire these heirloom seeds. But there was no pre-existing space for these guidelines to be determined and developed.

Martha Willcox (left) with farmers and their milpa products in Santa María Yavesía, Oaxaca state, México. (Photo: Arturo Silva/CIMMYT)

“There is a depth of expertise on maize in Mexico, but these experts all work at different institutions, making it more difficult for all of them to collaborate on a project like this,” said Martha Willcox, landrace improvement coordinator at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

“The formation of this civil association is truly novel in the history of native maize in Mexico, and its strength comes from the expertise of its members, made up entirely of Mexican scientists and Mexican farmer co-ops,” Willcox explained.

She initiated and facilitated the formation of this group of scientists and continues to work closely with them as an advisor. “This association will help provide a space and network where these experts can work together and speak in one voice to support maize and maize farmers.”

CIMMYT does not have a seat in the association but has played a key role in its facilitation and has provided funding to cover logistics and fees related to the formation of the organization, through the CGIAR Research Program on Maize (MAIZE). Mexico’s National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) has also participated in the logistics and facilitation of the formation of the organization.

Francisco Canul Poot in his land. (Photo: CIMMYT)

Sustainable tradition

Written by Rodrigo Ordóñez on June 3, 2019. Posted in Blogs.

The indigenous peoples who lived in central and southern Mexico thousands of years ago developed a resilient intercropping system to domesticate some of the basic grains and vegetables that contribute to a healthy diet.

Today, small farmers in roughly the same areas of Mexico continue to use this flexible system called “milpa” to grow chili, tomatoes, beans, squashes, seasonal fruits and maize, which are essential ingredients of most Mexican dishes.

An analysis of the Mexican diet done in the context of a recent report by the EAT – Lancet Commission found that Mexicans are eating too much animal fat but not enough fruits, vegetables, legumes and wholegrains. As a result, a serious public health issue is affecting Mexico due to the triple burden of malnutrition: obesity, micronutrient deficiency and/or low caloric intake. The study also urges Mexico to increase the availability of basic foodstuffs of higher nutritional value produced locally and sustainably.

Although changing food consumption habits may be hard to achieve, the traditional diet based on the milpa system is widely regarded as a healthy option in Mexico. Although nutritional diversity increases with the number of crops included in the milpa system, its nutritional impact in the consumers will also depend on their availability, number, uses, processing and consumption patterns.

Unfortunately, milpa farmers often practice slash-and-burn agriculture at the expense of soils and tropical rainforests. For that reason, it is also important to address some of the production-side obstacles on the way to a healthier diet, such as soil degradation and post-harvest losses, which have a negative effect on agricultural productivity and human health.

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) engages in participatory field research and local capacity-building activities with farmers, local partners and authorities to foster innovation and to co-create strategies and procedures that help farmers produce food sustainably.

These efforts led Francisco Canul Poot, a milpa farmer from the Yucatan Peninsula, to adopt conservation agriculture concepts in his milpa and to stop burning soil residues since 2016. As a result, his maize yield grew by 70%, from 430 to 730 kg per hectare, and his income increased by $300 dollars. 15 farmers sharing property rights over communal land have followed his example since.

These outstanding results are encouraging more farmers to adopt sustainable intensification practices across Mexico, an important change considering that falling levels of nitrogen and phosphorus content in Mexican soils may lead to a 70 percent increase in fertilizer use by 2050.

By implementing a sustainable intensification project called MasAgro, CIMMYT contributes, in turn, to expand the use of sustainable milpa practices in more intensive production systems. CIMMYT is also using this approach in the Milpa Sustentable Península de Yucatán project.

At present, more than 500 thousand farmers have adopted sustainable intensification practices — including crop diversification and low tillage — to grow maize, wheat and related crops on more than 1.2 million hectares across Mexico.