FAO special feature
Reviving and marketing ancestral agricultural food production practices
Mexico has a long history of resilient agricultural systems and food cultures that reflect the country’s agricultural biodiversity. With GEF funding, FAO and CONABIO are reviving traditional practices to support the resilience of farmers’ livelihoods and meet the nutritional needs of populations. © Sustainable Development Secretariat, Government of Yucatan
2024/05/22
As you walk through farmland in the rugged hills of parts of Mexico, you’ll see widely spaced corn plants, vine beans growing above them, and large pumpkin leaves covering the soil next to edible herbs. I can see it. These are all part of an agricultural system called milpa. This is the complete opposite of monoculture, with each household growing a variety of nutritious crops.
Milpas are the home of the tortillas, or cornmeal pancakes, that our Mexican grandparents made decades ago, cooked over a wood fire and served with beans. Milpa is a world apart from the ultra-processed packaged foods that are increasingly common in so many places.
These resilient ancient agricultural systems of pre-Hispanic origin and their associated food cultures are critical to Mexico’s agrobiodiversity. In fact, the term biodiversity itself may have been coined with this country in mind, given the purple, orange, or bright yellow colors of the dozens of varieties of corn found in this country. . The same is true for many other crops.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), is working to revive traditional farming practices and increase farmers’ access to these and other biodiverse indigenous foods. The goal is to help provide food to farmers’ fields and to consumers’ tables. and the local research institute, the National Commission on the Knowledge and Utilization of Biodiversity (CONABIO).
When it comes to human nutrition, the aim is to address some of the problems of overweight, obesity and non-communicable diseases. Like many other countries, Mexico is experiencing increasing consumption of highly processed foods and a growing problem of non-communicable diseases. Lack of diversity in people’s diets.
Mexico’s agrobiodiversity is a rich treasure trove of traits that help in adaptation to specific agroecological conditions, resistance to pests and diseases, and climate change. However, large-scale and intensive agricultural production, the continued expansion of monoculture practices, and the abandonment of traditional agricultural production have made households and communities more vulnerable to natural disasters and economic shocks, making food insecure. Not to mention the severe impact on security and nutrition.
Through an innovative project on the conservation of genetic diversity and traditional agroecosystems in Mexico, FAO, GEF and CONABIO were able to reverse this trend in selected regions.
The main objective of the FAO-GEF project was to revitalize the milpa farming system and give farmers awareness of their production.Left/Top: © Ivan Lowenberg. Right/Bottom: © Secretaría de Desarrollo Sutentable, Gobierno del Estado de Yucatan
Traditional knowledge protects agricultural biodiversity
The project’s main objective was to revitalize and raise the profile of milpas and give farmers recognition for their production, while helping people in the country’s urban areas see value in their work.Milpa systems, which enable farmers to diversify their crops and increase productivity while strengthening their resilience to climate change, have also been designated FAO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems in several parts of Latin America.
It has also created 77 community and family seed bank projects to improve local and regional agro-biodiversity management, involving more than 1,444 farmers, building networks of seed managers, and fostering community-to-community seed bank projects. It was also important to carry out a seed exchange. All of this has helped sustain 155 globally important species within the agroecosystem. The role of wild relatives of different crop varieties is particularly important in increasing resilience.
Over a five-year period, around 10,000 Mexican producers have used the practices and knowledge they acquired to strengthen their capacity to conserve and manage agrobiodiversity. These sustainable agricultural practices have directly impacted around 5,200 hectares and indirectly affected more than one million hectares.
The project also targets consumers, tapping into nostalgia for the taste of milpa cuisine and keeping prices down through direct trade practices and short supply chains. ©Ivan Lowenberg
Driving demand for agro-biodiversity products
Like many of FAO’s activities, this initiative focuses on farmers who are always willing to try and experiment with new varieties and approaches in new dimensions. But the project was also aimed at consumers who felt nostalgic for the taste of milpa cuisine after seeing producers selling their food in local markets.
To better understand consumer preferences, FAO conducted market research in six Mexican states. This was combined with a marketing campaign showcasing the origins and nutritional, health and environmental benefits of agrobiodiversity products. The market research showed that the campaign influenced the volume of products on the market and sales revenue. Connecting consumers and producers creates a virtuous cycle in which farmers diversify their production practices, supply consumers and those who demand more diverse products, and create markets for farmers. This helps transform agricultural production systems and improve both the environment and people’s nutritional status.
Additionally, by collecting quality data on food intake and food consumption, the project will also be able to measure the environmental and nutritional impacts of this holistic approach to promoting the intensification of traditional agro-production systems.
Building on the success of this initiative in Mexico, momentum and interest in promoting agrobiodiversity continues at the local level in many regions of the country. Meanwhile, FAO, in collaboration with his GEF and CONABIO, has ongoing efforts to focus on food systems in the country’s diverse cultural landscape, with completed projects providing the foundation for future efforts. I am.
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