Category — Cuba

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”.

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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.

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“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.”

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“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.

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