Maya Mountain Research Farm

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Maya Mountain Research Farm

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Maya Mountain Research Farm www.mmrfbz.org is a registered NGO and working demonstration farm working at the intersection of agriculture and ecology.

MMRF is Central Americas oldest working permaculture project. We have over 500 species of plants we work with on an annual cycle. In addition to our large agroforestry system, we work on renewable energy projects, and conduct training in permaculture, agroforestry and renewable energy. Our focus is primarily on climate change mitigation and adaptation. We are located 2 miles from the Queq'chi Maya community of San Pedro Columbia, in the foothills of the Maya Mountains southern flank Access to the farm is through trail, or by river. We have beds for up to 24 students, and offer internships and training throughout the year. MMRF is a great place to intern and learn about tropical ecology and agriculture. Because of Covid, we are closed to visitors.

23/08/2026

We would like to thank the UNDP and the Climate Change Department for the opportunity to participate in the "Fishbowl: From Policy to Practice: Advancing Carbon Markets and Climate Action in Belize at Climate Week 2026" where we made the case for biodiverse landscape carbon drawdown through multistrata agroforestry on both the farm and community level.

It was a pleasure to be invited back, again, after last years Climate Week.

30/07/2026

Yesterday we had the opportunity to install a photovoltaic pump at our good friend and former permaculture student Eugenio Aj's farm, Witzil Hi Farm in San Antonio, Toledo. It was a simple affair. He purchased the pump, and we donated the solar panel, which was one of eight panels donated to MMRF by BP solar which ran our Main Building.

Eugenio has a beautifully developed spring in a valley. We designed the system to pump water to a tank and then gravity feed it to the home garden at Eugenio's family house.

Wittzil Hi Farm is an award winning impressive agroforestry system that now has piped water to the home. We are glad to be able to work with them.

12/07/2026

Goings on about the farm.

09/07/2026

Since the last time we posted, we have sent plantain to Helping Older People Equally, twice, and our rainy season has started. The next few months will be a frenzy of planting many species of trees, pineapple, banana and plantain, papaya and other crops, and enhncing our sheep pastures with grasses and other fodder species.

The first flood of the year was on Tuesday the 8th of July, where overnight the river went from shallow and clear with a rise of over 14 feet at our dory landing. This kept us on the farm a day.

The annual cycle of disturbance of flooding and receding waters provides the communities in the foorhills of the Maya Mountains with annual accumulation of silt and detritus, providing fertility. This allows for annual maize production in the low areas. The video and first picture are the river flooding. The subsequent pictures are of the Pau family vega, which floods every year.

Because each year this vega gets inundated with nutrient laden floodwater, the Pau family has have grown maize and beans and pumpkin and other crops in this area for over 100 years.

Floods are an annual part of life here. They can force us to reevaluate our plans. They also revitalize soils along the riparian zone.

29/06/2026

We had a very large ficus fall in the river, last week. The river is our primary way into and off the farm. This tree made dory traffic impossible.

While there are only a few people who still use dug out canoes on the river for transportation, we do, and our neighbours, Miss Senovia and Ignacio, still do.

Celeni and I asked our friend, Miguel Cus to come over to help us, and he brought Valentino. The work took about four hours.

Dories can now pass, and the first flood of the year will push the logs to the sides of the river.

Much thanks to Miguel and Valentino for the help!

15/06/2026

We have had a good week last week as we enter the rainy season. Zephyr came out to the farm and we worked on the last few pictures we need for the manual on carbon farming. We had some real rain. We finished opening up an area of forest that was severely damaged in the 2024 fires, which will be more multistrata agroforestry system. We planted out hundreds of cassava plants. We had the first cashew of the year and our vanilla is doing well. We also sent two cahune cabbages to Helping Older People Equally.

05/06/2026

This week was a good week for us. MMRF's motto is "Food Security Through Biodiversity". We had significant rain and the soil is damp.

Following up on our attendance and small presentation at Biodiversity Week, we had a productive visit from the National Biodiversity Office and representatives from World Bank. Much thanks to Saul Cruz of the Biodiversity Office for setting this up.

We had a colony of stingless bees abandon their hive, a while back. This was recolonized by another colony splitting.

We had three sheep born from a single mother, which is something we are following since she only has two teats. Our flock has grown back from 10 to 20 in the last month. We downsized. Some of the sheep will be sold, including Brownie, the ram, to allow the ewes to rest.

And for two photos of biodiversity we have a picture of pineapple in the replanted fire degraded areas festooned with Momordica charantia, also known as "sorosi" and "bitter melon", and four types of bananas, Bluggo, apple banana, Jamaica Red banana and Gros Michel.

I hope everyone has a great week!

23/05/2026

Coming back from the spring, bucket loaded with a big coconut, some cacao and some banana in one hand, the other hand with a 47lb jackfruit, I stopped at The Dorm, which is one of the buildings we used to house students. I stopped to catch my breath. It is super hot. We have not had any rain since early April.

Sitting on the step to one of the rooms, I realized that two years ago we were dealing with the fire that reached us. There were fires across Belize. Toledo District lost over 400 farms. We had spent the previous weeks fighting fires in San Pedro Columbia, San Miguel and Silver Creek. I am grateful for the support we received from our village, adjacent communities, TIDE and BDF, and then from abroad as we replanted.

I didn’t stay long but took a few photos of the second floor veranda and continued on to the house with our harvest.

22/05/2026

Today I went to the village to retrieve a water tank. We are replacing our old rotoplast water tanks with BesTank, which is made here in Belize. We brought in another tank last year.

We are augmenting our water system, increasing storage capacity. We have 1000 gallons of water. This gives us an additional 600 gallons.

Increased water availability will help us through this hard dry season.

And we had another lamb born today!

Address

2 Miles Up River
San Pedro Columbia
TOLEDO

Telephone

+5016304386

Website

http://www.mmrfbz.org/

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