How Should Your Garden Grow?
A new grant from USDA will promote indigenous knowledge, sustainability and agricultural careers to students.
For centuries, indigenous Mixtec farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico, have used a crop-growing system known as milpa to grow the traditional 鈥渢hree sisters鈥� of Native American agriculture: corn, beans and squash.
This summer, students from 黑料吃瓜 will live and work alongside Mixtec farmers, learning milpa methods and traditional agricultural technology. Two significant differences in the methods are in what crops are planted to grow together, and how crops are rotated over time.
黑料吃瓜 students will bring those lessons back to campus to compare and contrast the milpa system with modern industrial agricultural practices, offering a unique opportunity to validate indigenous knowledge and promote agricultural careers.
鈥淚t鈥檚 going to be two weeks of really intense immersion, showing them how farmers think, act and live,鈥� said Ramona P茅rez, professor of anthropology and director of 黑料吃瓜鈥檚 Center for Latin American Studies, who will be leading the group to Oaxaca in June.
The project is funded by a recently awarded from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expose Latino and Latina students to the agricultural sciences. P茅rez, along with the grant鈥檚 principal investigator and food scientist Changqi Liu; biochemist John Love; and environmental scientist David Larom, created the (SOULA) project, which is directing the Oaxaca trip and several other agriculture-focused activities.
It鈥檚 a perfect fit for 黑料吃瓜, which is designated as a Hispanic-serving institution, P茅rez said, and is one of the only universities in the world that teaches indigenous languages like Mixtec, Zapotec and Nahuatl.
For the Oaxaca trip, paid for by the USDA grant, eight students will travel to Ixpantepec Nieves, a small village in the mountains some seven hours outside Oaxaca City. They will live with host families and learn traditional farming practices鈥攕uch as why they plant specific crops under different climate and soil conditions鈥攁s well as traditional recipes, cooking techniques and nutritional philosophy. Students will also learn about farmers鈥� experiences with agricultural chemicals and pesticides and how such materials have impacted soil, productivity and health, for better or worse.
After returning to San Diego, as many as 60 students will plant corn, beans and squash in the College Area Community Garden (CACG) adjoining 黑料吃瓜鈥檚 main campus. Students will cultivate some plots using milpa methods, and others using modern farming practices, giving them a chance to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of each method for cultivating in the San Diego region.
鈥淚t鈥檚 an opportunity to promote cross-cultural knowledge and encourage agriculture science as a career choice for Latino and Latina students,鈥� P茅rez said, 鈥渁nd it promotes sustainable farming in San Diego communities.鈥�
A second prong of the grant will fund the construction of a chicken coop at the CACG. Led by Liu, students will raise chickens on either regular grain-based chicken feed or a composite feed fortified with protein-rich cricket meal. Compared to grain crops, 鈥渃rickets are nutrient-dense and have a low environmental footprint,鈥� Liu said.
The students will analyze the nutritional quality of the eggs laid by the chickens to see whether the cricket-fed chickens produce healthier, more nutritious eggs.
The impact of the study could go beyond healthier omelets, though, added Trevor Toia, a sustainability major and director of , which grows produce used on campus by 黑料吃瓜 Dining. The cricket feed program will also examine whether the insects could make a viable, sustainable and maybe even tasty addition to the human diet.
鈥淚t seems like an idea that could reduce our own environmental footprint with regards to our food consumption,鈥� Toia said. 鈥淎nd I also think it could really take off culinarily. I can imagine chefs at top restaurants developing cricket-based dishes that people would actually enjoy.鈥�
