Biointensive Gardening

A new PI project for 2009 will provide biointensive farming workshops for up to 75 local farmers from our villages. Gardening and food production has significant cultural and historical meaning in Maya villages. In the past two years as our young students participated in the diabetes prevention project and interviewed many of their elders about food and farming they realized how this knowledge was being lost within their own families and villages.

Milpa agriculture is an integral part of Maya and Mexican culture and a healthy and sustainable healthy lifestyle. The three sisters: corn, beans, and squash have long been the dominant garden foods in Maya gardens, along with locally specialized cilantro, chives, and radishes and families are eager to revive their garden traditions.

In 2009 participating families will attend workshops to learn how to organically and sustainably increase food production on their ejido lands. Each will receive a Spanish language copy of John Jeavons’ book Cultivo Biointensivo de Alimentos.