What Are Milpas?

This next article is about a term used throughout rural Mexico, and the word is called Milpas or corn fields. The reason this word is unique is because this term has been used for years, and in this article I will explain what a Milpa is, and how the process of maintaining Milpas is done.

A Milpa is basically a corn field that extends for several acreas in rural areas of Mexico. Milpas are used to cultivate corn for tortillas, and for morning drinks. These fields are very green, and the independent farmers of Mexico depend on these Milpas to make their annual income.

A Milpa is well taken care of with the less advance technology rural farmers have, and they have water pumps to water these Milpas from nearby streams or ponds. But, the farmers really depend on the annual rain to water these Milpas, but in some parts of Mexico which is desert it only rains once a year. The Milpas are hand harvested from the planting to the picking of the crops. Some farmers are more advanced than others, but with Mexico's economic hard times some farmers have to depend on what their ancestors taught them. Which includes using all the out dated hand tools for the soil and plenty of machetes to cut the Milpas down. These Milpas are usually family oriented that means all the family participate in the harvesting of the Milpas.

I hope all of you have enjoyed my article and please feel free to leave me comments in the box below. If any of you have ever experienced Milpas first hand if it was in the United States or in Mexico just let me know in the comment box below. Farming corn fields in the United States has come a long way, we now have big combines to harvest the corn, and special fertilizers to make corn fields grow faster than before. But, at the same time these United States corn fields are not organic like the Milpas of rural Mexico. Thats why I always like to eat warm fresh corn tortillas from the Milpas of my family members in Mexico, because I know the tortillas are totally organic. A lot of Milpa rural farmers make their money off of selling their crops to city merchants, and the pay is very low for their goods. The rural farmers in Mexico are always the lowest paid people on the food chain, and this issue really needs to be fixed to fix the Mexican economy.