A Closer Look at the Milpa System: Sustainability and Adaptation in the Lacandon Rainforest

The Poor Prole’s Almanac

Bleav + The Poor Prole’s Alamanac

Home & Garden, Science, Nature, Leisure, Education, How To

5 • 761 Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the second part of our 2-part series, we look at the periphery of the milpa, and how milpa systems have long-ranging implications for the regional biome. We discuss how the milpa exists today within Chiapas and how it has evolved! Sources: Climate-Smart Adaptations and Government Extension Partnerships for Sustainable Milpa Farming Systems in Mayan Communities of Southern Belize Kristin Drexler Falkowski, T. B., Chankin, A., Diemont, S. A. W., & Pedian, R. W. (2019). More than just corn and calories: a comprehensive assessment of the yield and nutritional content of a traditional Lacandon Maya milpa. Food Security. doi:10.1007/s12571-019-00901-6 Diemont, S. A. W., Martin, J. F., & Levy-Tacher, S. I. (2005). Emergy Evaluation of Lacandon Maya Indigenous Swidden Agroforestry in Chiapas, Mexico. Agroforestry Systems, 66(1), 23–42. doi:10.1007/s10457-005-6073-2 Drucker, P., & Fox, J. W. (1982). Swidden Didn’ Make All That Midden: The Search for Ancient Mayan Agronomies. Journal of Anthropological Research, 38(2), 179–193. doi:10.1086/jar.38.2.3629596 Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millennia of Sustainable Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands Anabel Ford, Ronald Nigh Falkowski, T. B., Chankin, A., & Diemont, S. A. W. (2019). Successional changes in vegetation and litter structure in traditional Lacandon Maya agroforests. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 1–21. doi:10.1080/21683565.2019.1649784 The Maya milpa: fire and the legacy of living soil Ronald Nigh1* and Stewart AW Diemont2 Support this podcast by becoming a Patron at: https://www.patreon.com/PoorProlesAlmanac

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back.
0:16.4	This is Andy and we're still here, doing the Milpa.
0:20.0	There's no Milma? Milpa, like still here, doing the milpa. There's no mil ma?
0:21.4	Milpa, like Daddy Mill.
0:23.8	Got the Warbucks, you know, United States and Central America.
0:28.1	Only good things happen then.
0:29.9	Right.
0:31.1	Okay.
0:32.0	So tell us more about the Milpa system.
0:34.8	For folks that didn't tune into our previous episode, go check that out.
0:39.1	And we started this episode, and we realized it was going to be way too long, so now it's a two-parter.
0:44.6	Yeah, there was no intro.
0:45.5	We didn't write an intro, so we just had to chop this episode in half, and we're going to start right in the middle.
0:50.9	So if you're kind of confused, check out part one. And do you want to
0:55.1	dive in with more cheesy banter for an intro? Or do you want to... I love my cheese. It's like the
1:01.0	thick, stinky French cheese. Get these people of the information that they're looking for.
1:06.9	They're looking for the information about Milpa's because they're listening to it. So you just want to, do you want to deliver the goods?
1:13.5	Yeah, let's deliver that good, good.
1:15.6	So if you haven't caught the previous episode, we talked a bit about specifically the
1:19.0	Lecandones in the western part of Chappas, and a little bit about their Sweden
1:24.3	agricultural system, which is just based on this concept of planting things and
1:30.4	letting the natural succession of the forest take over. So we're going to pick up where we left
	...

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