milpa

English

Borrowed from Spanish milpa, from Classical Nahuatl.

milpa (countable and uncountable, plural milpas)

(agriculture, uncountable) A cyclical crop-growing system used throughout Mesoamerica.
- 2007, Peter John Ucko; G. W. Dimbleby, The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, Transaction Publishers, →ISBN, page 13:
  Milpa is based on seed crops, particularly the uniquely productive combination of maize, beans and squash, and in the past its techniques were normally those of swidden cultivation.
(agriculture, countable) A small field, especially in Mexico or Central America, that is cleared from the jungle, cropped for a few seasons, and then abandoned for a fresh clearing.
- 1993, Richard E. Blanton; Stephen A. Kowalewski, Ancient Mesoamerica: A Comparison of Change in Three Regions, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 40:
  These three plants are often grown together in a single field called a milpa, the beans creeping up the corn stalks while the squash plants catch along the lower leaves of the corn plants.
- 2010, Sheldon Annis, God and Production in a Guatemalan Town, University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 37:
  That means that no one can get rich or make someone else rich by farming a milpa. Since it works against capital accumulation, it is antithetical to entrepreneurship. In short, planting a milpa optimizes resources in a very particular way.

crop-growing system

Cognate to Classical Nahuatl mīlpan

milpa

From Classical Nahuatl mīlpan, from mīlli (“cultivated land”) + the locative pan (“in; on”).

milpa f (plural milpas)

milpa