Abstract

There are disproportionate adverse impacts related to climate change on rural subsistence farmers in southern Belize, Central America who depend directly on natural resources for their food and livelihood security. Promoting a more resilient farming system with key climate-smart agriculture (CSA) adaptations can improve productivity, sustainability, and food security for Mayan milpa farming communities. Once a sustainable system, the milpa has become less reliable in the last half century due to hydroclimatic changes (i.e., droughts, flooding, hurricanes), forest loss, soil degradation, and other factors. Using interviews with both milpa farmers and Extension officers in southern Belize. This qualitative study finds several socio-ecological system linkages of environmental, economic, socio-cultural, and adaptive technology factors, which influence the capacity for increasing CSA practices. Agriculture Extension, a government service of Belize, can facilitate effective CSA adaptations, specifically, an increase in mulching, soil nutrient enrichment, and soil cover, while working as partners within Maya farming traditions. These CSA practices can facilitate more equitable increases in crop production, milpa farm system sustainability, and resilience to climate change. However, there are several institutional and operational barriers in Extension which challenge their efficacy. Recommendations are presented in this study to reduce Extension barriers and promote an increase in CSA practices to positively influence food and livelihood security for milpa communities in southern Belize.

Highlights

  • Through socio-ecological system (SES) examination of interview data from milpa farmers and Extension officers, this study finds direct and indirect influences of climatesmart agriculture (CSA) practices— mulching, soil enrichment practices, and ground and soil cover methods—on milpa farming sustainability

  • From interviews with milpa farmers and Extension officers in Belize, this study finds climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices were perceived to have overall positive socio-ecological system influences on Maya milpa farming communities, including: (a) Economic, (b) Environmental, and (c) Socio-cultural influences, as well as (d) Adaptive technology potential; these influences were perceived as conduits for sustainable milpa agriculture

  • From interviews with milpa farmers and Extension officers in Belize, this study finds climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices of mulching, soil nutrient enrichment, and soil cover can have overall positive socio-ecological system (SES) influences on milpa sustainability in southern Maya Belize communities

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Summary

Introduction

In the last 50 years, the slash-and-burn aspect of the milpa has become less reliable and less sustainable due to environmental factors, such as hydroclimatic changes (i.e., droughts, flooding, hurricanes), forest and biodiversity loss, pests and crop disease, soil degradation and other factors in combination with socioeconomic and governance factors such as poverty, population growth, land tenure, and marginalization [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16] These factors have multiple systemic impacts to the resilience of milpa communities. These ecosystem changes are “expected to threaten the sustainability of social, economic, and ecological systems” [24] p. 8

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