Agroforestry

Restoring ecosystems and livelihoods through sustainable, multi-layered food forests.

Maya Mountain Research Farm has been managed as an agroforestry system since the late 1980s. When the project began in 1988, the land was a degraded citrus and cattle farm. Years of grazing had compacted the soil, and the citrus trees were nearing the end of their productive life.

Through careful management and natural succession, MMRF has transformed this damaged landscape into a thriving forest of fruit, timber, medicinal, and marketable trees.

Today, our agroforestry system covers more than 30 of our 70 acres—and continues to expand each year. Within this area, we cultivate hundreds of plant species, with a strong emphasis on tropical staple trees such as breadnut, breadfruit, jackfruit, peach palm, and ramon nut. These canopy trees are complemented by sub-canopy crops like cacao, coffee, ginger, turmeric, cardamom, and vanilla.

Our system mirrors the layered structure of a tropical rainforest—featuring canopy, sub-canopy, emergent, terrestrial, and sub-soil layers. Each contributes to a balanced cycle of nutrients, productivity, and ecological services. By replicating the natural functions of the rainforest, our agroforestry model produces food, timber, fuelwood, medicinal plants, and high-value crops—while also sequestering carbon, protecting soil and moisture, and creating wildlife habitat.

Agroforestry offers tremendous benefits to smallholders in the humid tropics. Systems can be designed around each farmer’s goals—whether timber, fruit, oilseed, or longer-term anchor crops like cacao and coffee. At MMRF, our polyculture includes native timber species such as mahogany, cedar, guanacaste, and mayflower, alongside exotics like teak. Interplanted are fruit trees—mango, avocado, mamey sapote, rollinia, annona, soursop, breadnut, and breadfruit—along with sub-canopy crops including cacao, coffee, and palms.

Ground-level crops like ginger, pineapple, turmeric, and leguminous cover plants help build soil fertility. Herbaceous perennials such as banana and papaya serve as pioneer species, providing quick yields and essential biomass.

Most of the food we eat—and much of what we feed our sheep, rabbits, chickens, and ducks—comes from perennial crops in this agroforestry system. By prioritizing perennials, we achieve higher food yields with less energy input, enhancing both resilience and sustainability.

We also practice “induced patchiness”, clustering species in certain zones to make harvesting easier and improve pollination—much like natural forest patterns. Around our main facilities, you’ll find a coconut-dominant polyculture, with coffee, cacao, pineapple, and breadnut interspersed in mixed plots that support diverse habitats and yields.

Our system has proven resilient in the face of challenges. Following severe fires in 2008 and 2024, we observed that mature agroforestry plots were far less vulnerable than younger systems or naturally regenerating wamil forest. Since then, we’ve expanded our cultivated areas—planting moringa, pineapple, and banana along contours to stabilize soil and provide early harvests while long-term species mature.

Today, MMRF’s agroforestry landscape stands as a living example of restoration and regeneration—balancing ecological function, food security, and sustainable livelihoods.