Milpa interspersed with fruit trees: review and study case in Cañón del Usumacinta, Tabasco, Mexico.

Abstract

The Milpa Interspersed with Fruit Trees (MIAF for its Spanish acronym), resulting from an interdisciplinary process, is based on the traditional milpa in small-scale production units under rainfed and slope conditions. A bibliographic review was carried out from January 2005 to February 2021 of the free access material in the internet on the MIAF. Based on this, its implementation and adaptation in Cañón del Usimacinta, Tabasco (Mexico), by the Sembrando Vida program and recipients, was examined from an anthropological approach. The bibliographic review included MIAF and Milpa Intercalada con Árboles Frutales in different search engines. The publications obtained were organized by: geographical area, climate, institution of origin, year of publication, disciplines, methods used, keywords in publication titles, gender, research line of authors, and conclusions. The implementation and adaptation of the MIAF in Cañón del Usumacinta was analyzed through ethnographic documentation in 2020-2021. In the publications it was found that the MIAF has advances regarding the agronomic and edaphoclimatic principles. An important absence of studies from the humanities was detected, as well as a limited participation of women in the publications. The MIAFs established in Canón del Usumacinta show advances in their implementation, although it is urgent to consider the agronomic principles originally proposed, as well as contemporary peasant knowledge. This study proposes the incorporation of the theoretical framework of Participative Action Research for development of the MIAF with epistemological, ontological and methodological foundations based on the humanities for its scaling.