The magic bean: Jules Pretty argues that the time has come to put the wonder back into nature--and the culture back into agriculture. (Sustainable Agriculture).(velvet bean, Mucuna pruriens)

From: New Internationalist | Date: January 1, 2003| Author: Pretty, Jules | Copyright information

WHEN you gaze from the top of the Temple of the Giant Jaguar, 96 metres above the floor of Tikal, you look down upon the crowns of giant rainforest trees, the branches of which crack and snap as howler and spider monkeys leap and chatter. Had you been dropped here from afar, you might have been forgiven for thinking you gazed upon a wilderness.

The Peten rainforest of northern Guatemala is one of the world's hotspots for biological diversity, containing 200 species of ma...

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