Ginger, being a rabid fan of agroforestry, HAD to stop and take these pictures along the road from Ticul to Oxcutzcab. I like them a lot too. Agroforestry, for those of you who are as yet un-hipped to agricultural lingo, is the practice of combining agricultural production with forest products. For example, planting coffee in the shade of fruit trees to harvest both, prevent erosion, and boost soil productivity while providing habitat for migratory birds and other cool things. Sorry if that description is not accurate enough, Ginger. In the case here, the farmers are growing corn with bananas in the first photo and I don't know what in the second (looks like bananas to me). The third is an irrigation conduit and the last one is a house that looks pretty typical for the area. Note the open doorways: great for breezes, sucky for mosquitos. I think it's a beautiful house. If it were warm here year round I'd build one like it.
1 comment:
I'd say you did a better-than-decent job of describing agroforestry systems. :) There is one key element that most people leave out (so don't feel bad) and that's that the systems are mutually beneficial. That doesn't always happen (Coffee needs shade trees, but do the shade trees need coffee?), but in agroforestry theory (quite a stretch from feminist theory) that is the case.
And I don't see any bananas in the second photo. The short tree-looking thing is a tree. I've heard it called "nispero" in other places and I think they grow it in California and call it something that we Alabamians have heard of (like "kumquat" or something), but I can't remember it now.
That smaller yuca-looking shrub (not "Yuck-uh" like the ornamental we have here, but "yuke-uh" like the tuber that is eaten almost all over the Americas except the US and Canada) is something that I should know too, but I can't remember it either. :(
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