Product Code Database
In agriculture, a milpa is a field for growing food crops and a crop-growing system used throughout Mesoamerica, especially in the Yucatán Peninsula, in Mexico. The word milpa derives from the Nahuatl words milli and pan. Based on the agronomy of the Maya peoples and of other Mesoamerican peoples, the milpa system is used to produce crops of maize, , and squash without employing artificial and artificial .
The land-conservation cycle of the milpa is two years of cultivation and eight years of laying fallow. In the Mexican states of Jalisco and Michoacán and in central Mexico as well as Guanacaste Province Costa Rica, as an agricultural term milpa denotes a single corn plant; in El Salvador and Guatemala, milpa specifically refers to harvested crop of maize and the field for cultivation.
The concept of milpa is a sociocultural construct rather than simply a system of agriculture. It involves complex interactions and relationships between farmers, as well as distinct personal relationships with both the crops and land. For example, it has been noted that "the making of milpa is the central, most sacred act, one which binds together the family, the community, the universe ... it forms the core institution of Indian society in Mesoamerica and its religious and social importance often appear to exceed its nutritional and economic importance."Nigh, R. (1976) Evolutionary ecology of Maya agriculture in highland Chiapas, Mexico. PhD dissertation, Stanford University. Ann Arbor: University microfilms.
Milpitas, California, derives its name from the Nahuatl term "milpa" followed by the Spanish feminine diminutive plural suffix "-itas".
|
|
