The harvests of the Yucatecan Maya farming system are increasingly threatened by droughts and the consequences of climate change.
Following a diagnosis carried out in 2018-2019, the Arutam association’s attention was called to the fragility of the Yucatecan Maya farming system. Not only are the Mayans abandoning and selling their land, thereby losing their food autonomy, but the remaining farmers are seeing their harvests increasingly threatened by droughts and the consequences of climate change.
Faced with the disappearance of this traditional knowledge and this cultural wealth linked to the land, the association decided to work with the Mayans around five objectives: training Mayan farmers and raising their awareness of modern agro-ecological practices; building solar irrigation systems; regenerating the traditional Mayan farming system and passing on traditional knowledge; raising awareness and training the local population in nutrition and family health issues; and building a pilot experimentation centre on the association's land.
The pilot centre, a key element of the project, combines traditional Mayan agroforestry techniques with those of syntropic agriculture. Located in the middle of the beneficiaries’ plots, it is intended to be a place for experimentation, training, accommodation and awareness raising. Eventually, it will evolve towards agrotourism and ecotourism activities, focusing on the preservation of existing primary forests and their biodiversity. The centre also offers well-being holidays based on the ancestral medicinal knowledge of the Mayans. The aim is to offer the Mayans another way of promoting their traditions and know-how, largely linked to the values of buen-vivir (good living).
