The Americas’ First Regenerative Agriculture
By John Farais, founding chef at Indigenous Edibles
This is the first of several essays exploring native agricultural practices of the Americas, food cultivation techniques that sustained large populations without decimating native ecosystems. We’ll explore various possibilities, procedures, propagation, domestication, and even ceremonies around how the first peoples learned to farm and feed themselves.
These historical adaptive forms of food cultivation often endured for hundreds or thousands of years, and were essentially the first forms of regenerative agriculture established on these lands. Our objective is to explore these traditional methods and, if possible, suggest adaptations that weave them into modern farming techniques. Indigenous food cultivation techniques were for born of ingenuity and necessity, rather than science, data and mechanized technology.
Aztec Agriculture
All native habitat has a role in the cycles of life. A biodiverse equilibrium is the norm rather than exception, or was until the widespread adoption of industrial agriculture.
