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My work with the Q’eqchi’ took place over two months in the summer of 2014, when I interviewed and collected maize kernels from sixty farmers. The theoretical framework I present here reflects the findings of my biological lab work with those kernels. I found that farmers who used the cover crop velvetbean (Mucuna pruriens) in the milpa (cornfield) and who limited their herbicide applications ... read moreproduced maize with a higher protein concentration. Farmers were significantly more likely to use Mucuna in their fields if they cultivated in polyculture rather than in a single-crop system. The practices of intercropping, cover cropping, and low herbicide use conserve the soil by fixing nutrients like nitrogen, hindering weed proliferation, and preventing erosion.read less
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