The "milpa" system is used because of fast rotation in virgin growing
locations. Meaning no bugs or weeds -- meaning no pesticides or herbicides
required. You should visit the Mennonites here. They are growing "modern"
style. You simply can't believe the ever increasing amounts of chemicals
they must use each year -- and in the end -- we simply have chemical
resistant pests -- dead coral reefs -- and everyone with cancer.
Also -- the ash from burning the trees was the fertilizer. Ask the
Mennonites how quickly soil nutrition depletes in the tropics -- and how
much fertilizer you must use. Ask the cane farmers here as well!
As for the raised field agriculture in the swamps here. Still a good idea.
The flooding of these once per year sterilizes them -- just like rotating
milpa.
Of course -- it is inherent that all "modern" today think they know more
than 10,000 years plus of high cultural existence that developed the best
forms of agriculture. And now feel they know better!
I also can take you to 1000 acres that was used for this purpose for
thousands of years.
There is 23,000 acres perfect for this in the North Part of Ambergris Caye.
The raised swamp fields -- which still exist -- are also capable of 100%
organic food production.
Millions lived here for thousands of years using
milpa and raised field agriculture. Very succesfully! Where now we have
just 235 people in twice or more the area -- and they would starve if the
canned food stopped coming in.
There never were "lush" rain forests in the Yucatan -- to dry!! As you all found out in the US a couple of years ago when all those forest burned sending their smoke right up into the mid-west US!!
Stones and marl is what the soil is.
The land area measure refered to in milpa agriculture is Mecate -- this measure is presently applied here in Belize as 25 yards by
25 yards -- and 8 mecates to one acre.
The Maya "open" small sections -- measures in Mecate -- that is 25 yds by 25 yds. Not clearing trees from the land!! The wild life depends on these openings for their browsing. Stop milpa agriculture and wild life starves!
10 Mecaties per year feeds a family of 5 plus surplus for "trade". That is one acre and a quarter -- 8 makarties make one acre. Rotation time is 6 years. So 7.5 acres feeds a family of five for eternity -- barring exceptional droughts, volcanoes, earth quakes, falling stars or hurricanes. Which I believe would effect any style of agriculture == probably more so. As in droughts -- they "poke" the soil -- not plow -- so the soil hold moisture better. They had wells -- some in the Yucatan -- over 300 feet deep. They would carry water up long ladders and moisten their plants -- a few ounces to each.
Q:
The experts say that the Mayan farmers used slash and burn techniques. But, at the same time they assert that such methods could not have sustained this large of a population for such a long period of time. Thus, there is the "Mystery of Classic Mayan Agriculture".
A:
You really think so?? 247 acres = 1 km sq.
The Maya had a written language when Europeans were crawling in the mud!! They knew the orbit of venus to 24 seconds -- which we only knew to "correct" a few years ago -- 2 thousand years ago! They new the concept of zero, minus numbers, and infinity!
The Mayan agricultural sciences exceed anything we have today -- when it comes to perpetual sustainability! The modern agricultural society is destroying itself due to not listening to their science!!
Their greatest achievements being the genetic engineering of all their food products -- that is their food plant seeds.
Of course, I do not know this to be fact. What I believe is based on a little experience, a little knowlege, a little observation, some thought given to the subject and on a great deal of hard labor that has proven to me that these methods succeed in increasing both soil fertility and crop yields. I had already been using these cropping methods successfully when I learned about the "Mystery of Mayan Agriculture". It does not matter if they used these techniques or not. I am just calling the method "The Mayan Cropping Method" because if they had used such a method it would explain their great agricultural achievements.
What does matter is what such a cropping system could mean to subsistance farm families, to the animals and plants which inhabit the quickly deminishing tropical rain forests and to the rest of us who live on this small planet. The burning of the Earths forests is a severe threat to the environment that we all depend upon for survival. If wide scale use of such cropping methods could be adopted by subsistance farmers around the world, they could continuously farm the same piece of land year after year while improving the soil, improving the diet of their families and halting the distruction of the environment.
I am sure that these methods can work with most crops and on any scale, from family garden to village fields. Although I have begun the research, I do not have the resources to expand it to include other crops and larger scales of production.
I have been providing this information to every organization I can find that is working with subsistance farmers, in the hope that someone with the resources would be interested in getting such methods out to those who need it. If you can use this information to help these farmers, please do so.
By far -- the greatest amount of wild life historic to the Yucatan depends
on abandoned milpa for foods. Take these out of the formula and they die.
Ergo panthers coming out of the deep bush to hunt chickens, dogs and other
domestic game.
One last point. Modern man focuses on the classic period of the Maya
civilization. Yet it was their ending. For 3500 years before the classic
period they lived in a truly balanced harmony with nature. The "classic"
period is their period of opulence and decay -- which makes it so
attractive to moderns -- as they can relate only to that segment of the
rise and fall of a society.
It is very poor "science" to base the history of the Maya only on their
period of decadence just before their fall. Lest we forget!
Moderns are totally obsessed with bells, whistles and great temples. Not
with civilized co-existence of the human species. How very unfortunate --
but how so like man kind always.
Tropical soil in lowland jungles, at
least in Belize and the Amazon, it is one inch or less thick. I was
fascinated in Guatemala on the west side of the mountain ridge by the
Pacific, to see top soil on road embankments 15 to 20 ft thick. The cows
were standing in grassy fields eating when the grass was over their
shoulders and no fertilizers necessary, or other chemicals. There is
logic to living in the western side of Guatemala, or Central America.
The darn cows, never had to move out of a field, it grew fast and
sometimes faster than they could eat it.
I'll start with bishop Landa -- who
commented the Maya did not need domestic animals as game was plentiful in
their abandoned milpas. This from 1565!
Deer, turkey, Gibnut -- etc -etc -etc -- all depend on browsing. Your
baboons do just fine in the canopies though. but I still feel it is unfair
for moderns to decide which life forms have the right to exist here --
namely only those that fit with their politically correct agenda -- that
being the growing of rain forests.
Mechanized agriculture totally destroys the forest. Milpa does not! It
works the same as a forest fire. New growth shoots back out from the
ground. They poke -- not plow.
Greens show propaganda films of thousand acre clearing and burnings. These
are in Brazil. And yes -- they hire Indians to do that. It is not milpa!
They do this to raise beef! As the jungle comes back up -- the Beef browse
it -- finally killing all future germinations. This turns jungle to desert!
The beef raised in this way is to tough for human consumption -- some is
"corned" -- but most is sold to the cat food industry in the US. I have yet
to meet a "green" that does not keep cats. And I seriously doubt there is
one of those that has not has beef from Brazil in their cat food.
I would like to see a study regarding just how many cats there are in the
US (alone) and how many tons of beef (or other meats such as wild horse,
baluga whales etc.) they consume daily.
Course -- that is not a politically correct direction to pursue -- is it??
If white man wants to strip this planet of its jungles to feed cats -- well
as the superior being he is -- that is his right!
Back when white man arrived here, Europe was crawling out of the dark ages.
The spanish were so suppressed to see healthy people working past the age
of 80 and almost no children deaths. Europe was 8 out of ten children dead
before ten and average life expectancy was 18 for men an 14 for women that
survived their childhood. Indeed -- there was areas where the people were
actually going extinct!
The Indian bathed twice per day and the whites twice per life! I think that
is a good closing statement.
One last thing on food storage...
Because it is pre-processed and packaged and has a long shelf life in
tropical conditions ( months if not years ). In what was previously
British Honduras, you did not have refrigeration, only the odd
storekeeper and a few rich. You still require refrigeration, nitrogen
gas warehouses ( like in Canadian apples or cellars for potatos that are
cold ). You cannot store foods in the tropics. And the market in Belize
has been until now, too small to justify the investments and shipping
charges on cans for instance, makes it improbable financially.
European industry to tropical empires was built around their ability to
process foods that had long shipping conditions of months and shelf
storage life in remote areas in hot, or cold conditions without any need
of preventions against insects, heat/cold/damp, etc. You can leave a
case of SPAM or Condensed Milk on a store shelf in tropical conditions
for several years without compromising the product. You cannot do that
with fresh produce. The transportation bruises many fruits and storage
time is measure in hours, or a couple of days. Even imported potatos do
not last very long.
Of course -- these are all "savages" -- after all -- they did not even have
TV!!
Peter Singfield
The following references might be of interest to those discussing milpa
agriculture. Many of these works directly refer to Belize.
Abrams, Ira Rance
Atran, Scott
Bernstein, Richard H., and Robert W. Herdt
Brockmann, Thomas C.
Ewell, Peter T., and Deborah Merrill Sands
Flannery, Kent V.
Harrison, Peter D., and B.L. Turner II
Hernandez Xoclocotzi, E, and R. Padilla y Ortega
Jones, Grant D.
Lambert, John D. H., and T. Arnason
Nations, James D., and Ronald B. Nigh
Netting, R. McC
Perez Toro, Augusto
Pohl, Mary D.
Reina, Ruben E.
Reina, Ruben E., and Robert M. Hill
Steggerda, Morris
Teran, Silvia, and Christian H. Rasmussen
Villa Rojas, Alfonso
Wilken, Gene C.
Wilken, Gene C.
Caste War of Yucatan - Nelson Reed
Yucatan - Before and after the Conquest
The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico (1517-1521)
An Overview of the Mayan World
Early History Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
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