Milpa de Cacao

What does Milpa de Cacao mean? The word ‘Milpa’ means ‘field’ in the Spanish language. The meaning and process go back to long before Europeans arrived in Mesoamerica.

A milpa is a field, usually but not always recently cleared, in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melon, tomatoes, chilis, sweet potato, jícama, amaranth, and mucuna ... Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make proteins and niacin; ... Beans have both lysine and tryptophan ... Squashes, for their part, provide an array of vitamins; avocados, fats. The milpa, in the estimation of H. Garrison Wilkes, a maize researcher at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, "is one of the most successful human inventions ever created."

— Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

When we say ‘Milpa de Cacao’ it is intended to communicate that the cacao we grow & source is grown in polyculture. It is grown in areas that are home to many types of plants that keep each other healthy and benefit it ecosystem. Vanilla and Passionfruit would be the most well-known, but nature is not limited to just items you can buy in a store!

The colonization, economization, and industrialization of the natural world actually pose a great risk to agricultural producers. The desire to have a lot of one thing destabilizes the environment and disrupts the strength that comes with biodiversity.

Whether it is temperatures rising in elevations because of global climate changes or a fungus propagating, the benefits of creating food in polyculture allow producers to have multiple income streams to reduce their risk. Their land maintains its health and the produce retains the vitamins and minerals.

Atucún is proud to support our planet and the producers and craftsmen in Honduras.