Havana Harvest

by Mickey Ellinger and Scott Braley
San Francisco Bay View
February 26, 2010

Excerpt:

“Del cantero a la mesa: from the garden bed to the table,” says the banner outside the urban garden at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue in Havana’s Playa district. People are lined up at the counter to buy today’s harvest: lettuce, spinach, bok choy, garlic chives.

Havana has almost 10,000 gardens, ranging from back yards to truck farms like Alamar. The 44th Street organoponico (the official term for the organic gardens in raised beds), founded in 1992, takes up half a city block on what used to be a dumping place. Its 48 raised concrete beds are filled with a planting mixture made of soil brought in from farther out in the country, mixed with worm compost from a bigger garden near them. They start the plants in three shade houses, harvest a bed all at once and set out new plants the same day.

They grow sorghum around the edges of the whole garden as a trap plant; the bugs like sorghum and munch on it instead of the leaf vegetables. Garden director Roberto Perez Sanchez says that the sorghum “keeps the insects entertained.” Basil and marigold bloom at the foot of every bed to ward off more insects; and onions or garlic planted close together as a border inside each bed is a third line of defense.

This planting method gets results: They harvest half a dozen crops a year on average. Some plants like spinach go from garden to table in as little as 15 days. And the leaf crops are organically grown – beautiful, succulent, unblemished.

They also raise medicinal herbs – aloe vera, chamomile, lime, marjoram, two kinds of mint, and chicory. A sign at the counter from the macrobiotic researchers at Havana’s world-famous Finlay Institute explains the health benefits of chicory: “a friend of the liver.”

The garden co-operative has eight members: three in production, three in sales, a biological specialist that makes trichoderma (a biological control for nematodes) and director Perez, who is the agronomist and administrator. They contract part of the crop to the government to redistribute to schools, hospitals and workplaces to supplement what these institutions grow on site. They sell the rest directly: 80 percent of the profit goes to the workers, 15 percent to the state and 5 percent is saved as a capital reserve.

See the rest of the article and more photos here.

Around the World in 80 Gardens – BBC

Around the World in 80 Gardens was a television series of 10 programmes in which British gardener and broadcaster Monty Don visited 80 of the world’s most celebrated gardens. The series was filmed over a period of 18 months and was first broadcast on BBC Two from 27 January to 30 March 2008. A book and DVD based on the series were also published.

These food gardens were featured the series:

Garden number 32. USA – Liz Christy Garden, Manhattan, New York. The first community garden in New York City, founded in 1973 by local resident Liz Christy on a vacant lot on the corner of Bowery and Houston Street.

Garden number 49. Italy – Elio’s vineyard, Tivoli. A private fruit and vegetable garden.

Garden number 51. Morocco – The Aguedal, Marrakech. Royal vegetable gardens dating to the 12th century, irrigated with water from the Ourika valley, with water stored in large central cisterns.

Garden number 58. South Africa – The Company Garden, Cape Town. Originally created to provide fresh food to passing ships, using water from natural springs; now a city park.

Garden number 77. Singapore – Wilson Wong’s Community Garden. An urban vegetable garden created as a community project.

List of all 80 gardens from the show here.

A DVD of the series and a book are available at the TV Show website here.

Project launched to ring urban areas with thousands of small farms in bid to reverse agricultural decline

By Marc Frank in Camaguey
The Guardian
7 February 2010

Cuba has launched an ambitious project to ring urban areas with thousands of small farms in a bid to reverse the country’s agricultural decline and ease its chronic economic woes.

The five-year plan calls for growing fruits and vegetables and raising livestock in four mile-wide rings around 150 of Cuba’s cities and towns, with the exception of the capital Havana.

The island’s authorities hope suburban farming will make food cheaper and more abundant, cut transportation costs and encourage urban dwellers to leave bureaucratic jobs for more productive labour.

But the government will continue to hold a monopoly on most aspects of food production and distribution, including its control of most of the land in the communist-run nation.

The pilot programme for the project is being conducted in the central city of Camaguey, which the Cuban agriculture ministry has said eventually will have 1,400 small farms covering 52,000 hectares (128,490 acres), just minutes outside the town.

The farms, mostly in private hands but also including some cooperatives and state-owned enterprises, must grow everything organically, and the ministry expects they will produce 75% of the food for the city of 320,000 people, with big state-owned farms providing the rest.

On a recent day, dozens of people were hard at work plowing fields, hoeing earth, posting protective covering for crops and putting up fencing as the sun came up.

“This land they gave to us, the private farmers. I have four hectares (10 acres) and now they have leased me eight (20 acres) more,” one of the farmers, Camilo Mendoza, told Reuters.

“Look, on this side and the other side are other plots, and over there another. Here they have given quite a bit of land and support to private farmers,” he said.

The project is modelled after the hundreds of urban gardens developed by then-defence minister Raul Castro during the deep economic depression of the 1990s that followed the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.

See the rest of the article here.

For seven weeks in May and June of 2010, ten Canadians will have the opportunity to experience first hand the thriving urban agriculture and permaculture movements in Cuba. Based in the beautiful city of Sancti Spiritus, participants will work hand-in-hand with local leaders and practioners on a variety of fascinating projects producing food in the heart of the urban setting. Grounded in a model of partnership and collaborative learning, the program will include:

• Orientations in Canada and Cuba

• Workshops and dialogue on a variety of urban agriculture and permaculture themes

• Placements in existing permaculture/urban agriculture projects

• The opportunity to work with local leaders in the design and implementation of a new project site

• Spanish language learning

• Immersion in the rich cultural life and natural beauty of the Sancti Spiritus region of Cuba

• Optional graduate level credit through the University of Alberta, Faculty of Extension

This project is a partnership of The Urban Farmer, The University of Alberta Faculty of Extension, and the Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation for Nature and Man. Space is limited and will be granted on a first come, first served basis. Please see the attached brochure and registration form for complete details.

Attached brochure. 7MB PDF

For more information, please contact:

Ron Berezan, The Urban Farmer, theurbanfarmer@shaw.ca, 780 221-4800
Dr. Mary Beckie, University of Alberta, Faculty of Extension, marybeckie@ualberta.ca

The vegetable gardeners of Havana

By Sarah Murch
BBC Two’s Future of Food
August 2009

Climate change, drought, population growth – they could all threaten future food supplies. But global agriculture, with its dependence on fuel and fertilisers is also highly vulnerable to an oil shortage, as Cuba found out 20 years ago.

Around Cuba’s capital Havana, it is quite remarkable how often you see a neatly tended plot of land right in the heart of the city.

Sometimes smack bang between tower block estates or next door to the crumbling colonial houses, fresh fruit and vegetables are growing in abundance.

Some of the plots are small – just a few rows of lettuces and radishes being grown in an old parking space.

Other plots are much larger – the size of several football pitches. Usually they have a stall next to them to sell the produce at relatively low prices to local people.

Twenty years ago, Cuban agriculture looked very different. Between 1960 and 1989, a national policy of intensive specialised agriculture radically transformed Cuban farming into high-input mono-culture in which tobacco, sugar, and other cash crops were grown on large state farms.

Cuba exchanged its abundant produce for cheap, imported subsidised oil from the old Eastern Bloc. In fact, oil was so cheap, Cuba pursued a highly industrialised fuel-thirsty form of agriculture – not so different from the kind of farming we see in much of the West today.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the oil supply rapidly dried up, and, almost overnight, Cuba faced a major food crisis. Already affected by a US trade embargo, Cuba by necessity had to go back to basics to survive – rediscovering low-input self-reliant farming.

City allotments

Oxen replaced tractors when Cuba became a low-fuel economy
With no petrol for tractors, oxen had to plough the land. With no oil-based fertilizers or pesticides, farmers had to turn to natural and organic replacements.

Today, about 300,000 oxen work on farms across the country and there are now more than 200 biological control centres which produce a whole host of biological agents in fungi, bacteria and beneficial insects.

Havana has almost 200 urban allotments – known as organiponicos – providing four million tons of vegetables every year – helping the country to become 90% self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables.

Alamo Organiponico is one of the larger co-operatives employing 170 people, which was built on a former rubbish-tip that produces 240 tons of vegetables a year.

There are a wide range of crops planted side by side and brightly coloured marigolds at the edges.

“We produce all different kinds of vegetables,” says farmer Emilio Andres who is proud of the fact that his allotment feeds the local community.

“We sell to the people, the school, the hospital, also to the restaurant and the hotel too.

“It’s important because it’s grown in the city, it’s fresh food for the people, it’s healthy food, and it provides jobs for the people here too.

“We don’t spray any chemicals. We only spray biological means like bastilos – a bacteria and fungus to kill the pests. And we use repellent plants like marigolds to keep away the pests.

“When I see all of these healthy crops, without too many pests, grown without any chemicals, it’s amazing for me – I am making a contribution for the people that get healthy crops, healthy products.”

See the complete BBC article here.

Sunday 15 March 2009
Recordings: 26 minutes

Dusty Gedge, London TV (BBC).

Roberto Perez, Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation de la Naturaleza Y el Hombre in Cuba.

Vilda Figeroa, for 30 years a nutritionist at the Cuban Government Research Institute.

Justo Torres Lazo, urban farmer in Havana.

Madelaine Vasquez, food researcher, writer and presenter of the weekly TV programme “Con Sabor”

Guests:

Dr Julia Wright, head of programmes at Garden Organic and author of Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in an Era of Oil Scarcity: Lessons from Cuba

Ben Reynolds, coordinator of Capital Growth , a scheme launched last November by London mayor Boris Johnson and the woman he appointed to be the chair of London Food, Rosie Boycott.

What is the potential for growing our own food? Sheila Dillon looks at the Mayor of London’s new project to make more land available for food production. She also looks at the experience of Cuba where political and economic change forced the population to attempt an “organic revolution” as the country struggled to produce enough food to survive. One response was to grow more food in urban areas.

This experience has struck a chord with UK groups interested in “peak oil” food production, and the film The Power of Community: How Cuba survived Peak Oil has toured the UK to enthusiastic audiences.

So what can we learn from Cuba and how productive could urban farming be in the UK?

Link to BBC recording here.

Power of Community (film) – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call “The Special Period.” The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.

Link to Power of Community here.

By Esteban Israel
Dec 15, 2008

HAVANA (Reuters) – After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba planted thousands of urban cooperative gardens to offset reduced rations of imported food.

Now, in the wake of three hurricanes that wiped out 30 percent of Cuba’s farm crops, the communist country is again turning to its urban gardens to keep its people properly fed.

“Our capacity for response is immediate because this is a cooperative,” said Miguel Salcines, walking among rows of lettuce in the garden he heads in the Alamar suburb on the outskirts of Havana.

Salcines says he is hardly sleeping as his 160-member cooperative rushes to plant and harvest a variety of beets that takes just 25 days to grow, among other crops.

As he talks, dirt-stained men and women kneel along the furrows, planting and watering on land next to a complex of Soviet-style buildings. Machete-wielding men chop weeds and clear brush along the periphery of the field.

Around 15 percent of the world’s food is grown in urban areas, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a figure experts expect to increase as food prices rise, urban populations grow and environmental concerns mount.

Since they sell directly to their communities, city farms don’t depend on transportation and are relatively immune to the volatility of fuel prices, advantages that are only now gaining traction as “eat local” movements in rich countries.

ROOFTOPS AND PARKING LOTS

In Cuba, urban gardens have bloomed in vacant lots, alongside parking lots, in the suburbs and even on city rooftops.

They sprang from a military plan for Cuba to be self-sufficient in case of war. They were broadened to the general public in response to a food crisis that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s biggest benefactor at the time.

They have proven extremely popular, occupying 35,000 hectares (86,000 acres) of land across the Caribbean island. Even before the hurricanes, they produced half of the leaf vegetables eaten in Cuba, which imports about 60 percent of its food.

“I don’t say they have the capacity to produce enough food for the whole island, but for social and also agricultural reasons they are the most adequate response to a crisis,” said Catherine Murphy, a U.S. sociologist who has studied Cuba’s urban gardens.

GREEN PRODUCTIVITY

In Alamar, the members get a salary and share the garden’s profits, so the more they grow, the more they earn. They make an average of about 950 pesos, or $42.75, per month, more than double the national average, Salcines said.

The co-op, which began in 1997, now produces more than 240 tons of vegetables annually on its 11 hectares (27 acres) of land, which is about the size of 13 soccer fields.

The gardens sell their produce directly to the community and, out of necessity, grow their crops organically.

“Urban agriculture is going to play a key role in guaranteeing the feeding of the people much more quickly than the traditional farms,” said Richard Haep, Cuba coordinator for German aid group Welthungerhilfe, which has supported these kinds of projects since 1994.

When the Soviet Union fell apart, Cuba’s supply of oil slowed to a trickle, hurting big state agricultural operations. Chemical fertilizers were replaced with mountains of manure, and beneficial insects were used instead of pesticides.

Unlike in developed countries, where organic products are more expensive, in Cuba they are affordable.

“We have taken organic agriculture to a social level,” said Salcines.

Some experts fear that rising international food prices along with the destruction of the hurricanes will return Cuba to the path of agrochemicals. The government is planning to construct a fertilizer plant with its oil-rich ally Venezuela.

But Raul Castro, who replaced ailing brother Fidel Castro as president in February, has also borrowed ideas from the urban gardens as he implements reforms to cut the island’s $2.5 billion in annual food imports, much of it from the United States.

Castro has decentralized farm decision-making and raised the prices that the state pays for agricultural products, which has increased milk production, for example, by almost 20 percent.

And, in September, the government began renting out unused state-owned lands to farmers and cooperatives, measures that met with approval of international aid groups.

“Decentralization and economic incentives. If those elements are expanded to the rest of the agricultural sector, the response will be the same,” said Welthungerhilfe’s Haep.

(Reporting by Esteban Israel; Editing by Jeff Franks and Eddie Evans)

REUTERS – Oct 28, 2008
Reuters video in Spanish, linked. The video doesn’t seem to have been picked up by a news outlet and there is no news commentary in the footage. A raw script, which accompanies the video, and translation of the comments by the Cubans who were interviewed, is attached below this article.

Cubans hope urban gardens will solve food shortages caused by hurricane damage.

In the face of its greatest food shortage since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba has fallen back on urban agriculture, which helped provide relief in the 1990’s during the Caribbean island’s “special period”.

The destruction of roughly 30 percent of the communist island’s food after devastating hurricanes has put the spotlight back on a practice borne out of necessity during communist Cuba’s most desperate hour.

Nearly two months on from the last of Hurricane Ike’s downpours, basic staples like lettuce are still hard to come by, save for select spots like a decade-old nursery in the eastern Havana suburb of Alamar.

The urban farm at Alamar operates on short cycles, and utilizes an organoponic model that combines organic – defined here by a lack of fertilizer or other additives – and water-submersion hydroponics techniques. An artificial irrigation system provides the foundation of the system.

The harvest is distributed through an adjoining cooperative distribution network.

“As of now, we sold in the previous month’s time, a critical month, roughly 50 kgs of lettuce, more than two tons, and lettuce production has practically been stabilized, and chard production will be stabilized, there are tomato plants, plenty of radish has been sold, the sale of other aromatic plants has remained steady and is not even satisfying the demand because of the large effect [from the hurricanes], but the recovery began immediately,” Miguel Salcines, the administrator of the organoponic farm at Alamar, said.

The urban farms, which appear in as unlikely spots as parking lots and roof terraces as well as more ordinary venues like personal gardens, now provide for 50 percent of the vegetable produce consumed by the nearly 11 million Cubans.

“In the end, the policy of urban agriculture is bringing results. You can see that we have vegetables in this organoponic garden and in these selling units,” a shopper at Alamar, oncologist Jesus Perez Alvarez, said.

The success of the model, that has flourished at other Havana farms like that of Bahia, has drawn the official seal approval of the Cuban government, despite the implicit autonomy it entails.

Grocery shoppers at the Bahia urban farm credit the model with helping Cuba overcome the devastation caused by the hurricanes.

“The situation really is getting better, now for example there’s lettuce, chard, some vegetables here and in other places, but it’s undeniable that the country hasn’t yet recovered,” Cuban retiree, Silvia Valladares, said.

And unlike the state-run grocery markets, the urban farms aren’t as exposed to the highs and lows of the Cuban economy at large, directly moving their produce to their communities.

The model’s record of consistently offering a full range of food items is among its chief selling points.

“I don’t have time to go to the farmer’s market everyday, and there are times when a product comes in, and there are times when not, and there are plenty of shortages. And here, you can plant something, and at least that helps,” Cuban retiree Angel Romay Ortis said as he began work on his own urban farm.

Havana froze prices in September in the wake of the hurricanes, but urban producers still offer fruits and vegetables at lower prices than the state markets – also offering a wider range of produce.

What began with a cooperative of four farmers in 1997 has developed into a sector that counts 160 producers working on 11 hectares of land – the equivalent of 13 soccer fields – to produce 240 tons of produce each year. And the urban farmers’ output of 50 percent of the island’s produce is accomplished on just 20 percent of the island’s arable land.

As one way of increasing production, Cuba announced on Monday (October 27) it would allow most farms to purchase basic supplies at stores for the first time since the 1960s, when the US-embargo came into effect.

Since officially taking the helm of the Cuban state on February 24, 2008, Raul Castro has expressed his desire to apply such a productive model throughout the whole of Cuba’s socialist economy, emphasizing benefits of entrepreneurship.

For his work at Alamar, an urban farmer earns 950 Cuban pesos (USD 42.75) a month, nearly double the average Cuban’s salary.

Script for the Video Shot in Cuba

Link to video from Cuba in Spanish here.

1. VARIOUS OF SPRINKLERS AND ARTIFICIAL IRRIGATION SYSTEM AT EAST HAVANA ALAMAR ORGANOPONIC DISTRIBUTION FARM

2. MEN WORKING VEGETABLE FIELDS AND ORGANOPONIC GARDEN

3. FIELD SEEDED WITH VEGETABLES USING SHORT ORGANOPONIC CYCLES

4. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) ADMINISTRATOR OF EAST HAVANA ORGANOPONIC ALAMAR
FARM, MIGUEL SALCINES, SAYING:

“As of now, we sold in the pervious month’s time, a critical month, roughly 50 kgs of lettuce, more than two tons, and lettuce production has practically been stabilized, and chard production will be stabilized, there are tomato plants, plenty of radish has been sold, the sale of other aromatic plants has remained steady and is not even satisfying the demand because of the large effect [from the hurricanes], but the recovery began immediately.”

5. PEOPLE ARRIVE FOR SHOPPING AT ALAMAR ORGANOPONIC DISTRIBUTION COOPERATIVE

6. VARIOUS OF MEN TAKING LETTUCE HEADS FROM A WHEELBARROW FOR PURCHASE

7. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN ONCOLOGIST, JESUS PEREZ ALVAREZ, SAYING:

“In the end, the policy of urban agriculture is bringing results. You can see that we have vegetables in this organoponic garden and in these selling units.”

8. WOMEN ARRIVING TO CHECKOUT LINE AT EAST HAVANA BAHIA ORGANOPONIC COOP

9. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE BUYING VEGETABLES AT CHECKOUT COUNTER OF EAST HAVANA BAHIA ORGANOPONIC DISTRIBUTION COOP

10. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN RETIREE, SILVIA VALLADARES, SAYING:

“The situation really is getting better, now for example there’s lettuce, chard, some vegetables here and in other places, but it’s undeniable that the country hasn’t yet recovered.”

11. VARIOUS OF MAN PREPARING A PIECE OF HIS PROPERTY INTO URBAN FARM TO GROW VEGETABLES

12. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN RETIREE, ANGEL ROMAY ORTIS, SAYING:

“I don’t have time to go to the farmer’s market everyday, and there are times when a product comes in, and there are times when not, and there are plenty of shortages. And here, you can plant something, and at least that helps.”

13. WOMEN WALKING TOWARDS STATE AGRO-MARKET AT VEGETABLES STAND THAT HAS EMPTY SHELVES

14. VEGETABLE STAND WITH TABLE READING:
“GARLIC, $2.50 EACH,”AND “YUCCA $1.50 EACH,” (”AJO, C/U $2.50″ AND “CHOPO, C/U $1.50″)

15. EMPTY SHELVES AT FARMER’S AGRO-MARKET VEGETABLE STANDS

16. VARIOUS OF MEN SEEDING VEGETABLES USING SHORT CYCLES AT EAST HAVANA ORGANOPONIC DISTRIBUTION COOPERATIVE

With Food Prices Soaring, Cuba’s Urban Farms Could be a Model for the World

Niko Price, Associated Press
June 9, 2008
Photo by Javier Galeano/

“Ms. Bouza was a research biologist, living a solidly middle-class existence, when the collapse of the Soviet Union — and the halt of its subsidized food shipments to Cuba — effectively cut her government salary to $3 a month. Suddenly, a trip to the grocery store was out of reach.

“So she quit her job, and under a program championed by then-Defence Minister Raul Castro, asked the government for the right to farm an overgrown, half-acre lot near her Havana home. Now, her husband tends rows of tomatoes, sweet potatoes and spinach, while Ms. Bouza, 48, sells the produce at a stall on a busy street.

“Neighbours are happy with cheap vegetables fresh from the field. Ms. Bouza never lacks for fresh produce, and she pulls in between $100 to $250 a month — many times the average government salary of $19.

Read complete article here.

“This book presents the results of a 3-year research project on the history and state of urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba. A multidisciplinary team of 15 professionals, coordinated by the authors, assess the long-term potential for including urban agriculture in the social economies of two areas of Havana, as well as in city-wide environmental management programs.”

“The results will be of particular interest to municipal, local, and community authorities considering how to convert emergency food-production measures into long-term support for urban agriculture, both for food self-reliance and for environmental enhancement (including park rehabilitation). The book will also be of interest to producers, students, decision-makers, and academics interested in sustainable management of the urban environment.”

By Maria Caridad Cruz and Roberto Sánchez Medina
Ian Randle Publishers/IDRC 2003, 244 pages.

The complete book can be read on-line here.

“Urban agriculture nationwide reduces the dependence of urban populations on rural produce. Apart from organoponicos, there are over 104 000 small plots, patios and popular gardens, very small parcels of land covering an area of over 3 600 ha, producing more than the organoponicos and intensive gardens combined [1]. There are also self-provisioning farms around factories, offices and business, more than 300 in Havana alone. Large quantities of vegetables, root crops, grains, and fruits are produced, as well as milk, meat, fish eggs and herbs. In addition, suburban farms are intensively cultivated with emphasis on efficient water use and maximum reduction of agrotoxins; these are very important in Havana, Santa Clara, Sancti Spiritus, Camaguey, and Santiago de Cuba.

Shaded cultivation and Apartment-style production allow year-round cultivation when the sun is at its most intense. Cultivation is also done with diverse soil substrate and nutrient solutions, mini-planting beds, small containers, balconies, roofs, etc. with minimal use of soil. Production levels of vegetables have double or tipled every year since 1994, and urban gardens now produce about 60 percent of all vegetables consumed in Cuba, but only 50 percent of all vegetables consumed in Havana.”

The above excerpt is from The Institute of Science in Society. The article can be found here.

The photo, titled ‘Organoponic’ is by Nelsón León Nicolau, IDRC Photo.

Caption with photo: “In the municipal Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, Cuba, at the corner of Hidalgo and Colon streets, farmers grow organic vegetables to serve the people who live in nearby neighbourhoods. Fifteen people work to cultivate a wide variety of vegetables and herbs, and another five are employed caring for the facility. Tape-recorded sounds are used to frighten away birds, and only organic products are used for pest control.”

Larger version here.

CUBA – Urban Agriculture Takes Off 

Article from the Latin American Press by Lucila Horta.  Nov 9, 2006

Small plots in the island’s cities yield fruitful harvests of vegetables, grains and even spices.
Between January and March of this year, more than 1 million tons of fresh vegetables and spices were harvested on small-scale plots tucked away in the island’s urban centers.

Cuba’s cities are home to 4,035 organic plots, 8,563 high-production gardens, and 137,000 small plots on patios and suburban farms, totaling 35,775 hectares (88,000 acres) of vegetable, tuber, banana, fresh spices and even rice crops.

The organic cultivations are sewn with a mix of organic materials and top soil that is placed in containers, beds and small fields that are installed in vacant areas in dense population centers where the soil is generally unproductive.

The state performs periodic inspections of these plots, examining not only the quantity produced but also the appropriate use and recovery of soils and other agricultural techniques.

“A temperate winter and an outstanding human effort were the deciding factors in increasing the number of provinces with good marks in the inspections,” says Adolfo Rodríguez Nodals, head of the National Urban Agriculture Group, the island’s most successful food program.

These high-turnover plots in Cuba’s cities began more than half a century ago in Chinese immigrant communities. They grew beans, lettuce and turnips. But such farming faded out, and became only a subsistence method for some of these immigrants.

The trend sprung back in 1987 on the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) bases, when Gen. Raúl Castro — Cuba’s current acting president — instroduced organic crops to complement the soldiers’ consumption.

Project’s military roots

This farming method reached civilian life in the 1990s’ economic crisis. The National Urban Agriculture Program was founded in 1994, operating under the Alejandro Humboldt Fundamental Research Institute on Tropical Agriculture, which pioneered semi-protected cultivations in Cuba. Seventeen institutions later became involved along with seven ministries.

These small, urban farms provide work to 350,000 people — 20 percent of them women. The program has provided an incentive to work for many retired Cubans and housewives, producing food in an unconventional way.
Housewife Francisca Eugenia Milanés has sold her fresh produce in a tricycle cart in Veguitas, in the southwestern province of Granma, for five years. “No one wants to buy shriveled leaves. That’s for throwing away,” Milanés says, defending her high-quality product.

Ramona Delgado Fernández tends 18 organic fields, each of them up to 10-meter- (30-foot-) long, for a branch of the Sugar Ministry. She says she is happy to see “the results of our work” in circles of children, schools and marketplaces in the town of Santa Cruz del Norte, east of Havana.

Carlos Manuel Hernández, 78, of the Melena del Sur district in Havana, came out of retirement to convert a garbage dump into a just over 1-hectare- (2.47-acre-) garden, along with three other retired residents. Óscar Alemán Pérez, now retired from the FAR, has dedicated himself to working in small gardens and orchards, and after observing the need and demand for processed products, he created a workshop for producing and preserving food.

Crops contribute to island’s food supply

The national program worked only with vegetables at first. Gradually, tubers and rice were added, and there are 27 offshoot programs in action today, including poultry and livestock raising, fruit planting and organic fertilizer production.

“In our climate, semi-protected crops are a very promising thing,” says Rodríguez Nodals. These crops are covered by nets filtering the sun radiations, which in Cuba can be very strong during the hottest months, requiring large amounts of water, something that is not always available on the scale needed.
Rodríguez Nodals says that among the advantages of urban farming is the conservation of fuel, since the goods do not need to be transported to the consumer, as they are so close by. Seventy-six percent of the Cuban population lives in cities, he notes, and these small-scale urban plots, because of their size, can withstand harsh natural conditions.

Three strong hurricanes have hit Cuba since the urban agriculture program went into effect, and damages to these plots were minimal. A severe drought, however, affected the entire country, and the effects were most damaging in the eastern provinces since 2003. As a result, electric irrigation and other machine-based methods were employed for many urban fields.

When this weakness of the system was touched upon during one of his inspections on these sites last January, Gen. Castro made a reference to a investment project for water resources, which was launched to solve the water deficit in Camaguey and the five eastern provinces, through investments in water channels and reservoirs.

While some provinces and cities are still not producing their potential yield, this system has been praised by international experts, such as professors Peter Rosset and Miguel Altieri of the University of California at Berkeley as an example of the food production within cities without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers and as a form of relief on the family budget.