the Mexican Heirloom Bean route

This customized 13-day itinerary that we designed at the invitation of LA COMANDANTA, a high-impact company focused on identifying, rescuing and promoting authentic Mexican Creole foods, for the corporate and research project of The Heirloom Bean Co., a company that offers in the United Kingdom the most complete variety of traditional beans from small agricultural producers in Mexico and the United States, included visits to 9 traditional bean producers, an organic "slow food" ranch, interviews with farmers, tastings in "farm to table" restaurants, as well as learning about ancestral techniques such as nixtamalization, planting in milpa, chinampa and metepantle.

The curatorship was complemented with visits to UNESCO world heritage sites, archaeological zones, museums, historic buildings, municipal markets and protected natural areas.

Our clients had the personalized assistance of TERRACANTO Experiences at all times to coordinate the logistics for transportation, accommodation, and meals. And in all activities, visits and exchanges with communities, interpretation was provided into English and Spanish, as well as explanations regarding historical, social and cultural contexts when necessary.

Throughout the tour, we helped on the process of compiling information on the use of ancestral techniques such as milpa or metepantle to harvest the different varieties of traditional beans in the country, the transmission of knowledge inherited from generation to generation, the agro-ecological orientation of producers, production capacities, the value of these legumes to sustain the economies of the communities, the need for effective financing schemes and the challenges that climate change imposes on these models of sustainable agriculture.

We also facilitate contact between The Heirloom Bean Co. and producers who are part of the LA COMANDANTA network to learn about the history of women, men and families who, with ingenuity, innovation and a great love for the countryside, keep these increasingly scarce bean varieties alive in the face of the expansion of high-yielding industrialized agricultural processes and the abandonment of land by economically pressured farmers looking for opportunities in large cities of Mexico or emigrating to the United States.