CUBA'S AGRO-ECOLOGICAL REVOLUTION:
After a few shots of freshly squeezed sugarcane juice, I follow Miguel Salcines Lopez into the fields of what is the most stunning urban farm I have ever seen: Organoponic Vivero Alamar, the largest and most successful organic garden in Havana, Cuba. Miguel is the president.
The produce list is long: guavas, mangos, sugar cane, noni, figs, papaya, grapes, and acocadoes, not to mention dozens of vegetable and medicinal crops. But it's not just the overall agricultural diversity that is amazing to behold; it's the diversity found in each field, plot, and bed - a mix that turns out to be a key to this farm's success.
Miguel is a farmer of the 21st century. With a stylish jean jacket and rakish cowboy hat adorning his six-foot frame, he looks more like a Cuban John Wayne than the stereotyped stooped, tired peasant. That's part of his game: he wants to make agriculture attractive, especially to the younger generation.
I ask Miguel how he and his 163 coworkers grow such healthy, blemish-free organic produce on their 11 hectares in the tropics. One trick is to plant in colour bands, Miguel explains. Insects orient themselves by colour. In a natural forest, the mix of colours prevents insects from destroying any one species of plant, so the farmers here mimic the forest in their planting patterns. Rather than plant a whole area in lettuce, for example, they plant one of their raised beds in lettuce, another in broccoli, the next in carrots, and so on.
Miguel describes other insect controls: nearly every one of the hundreds of raised beds, elevated for better drainage, has chives or bunching onions growing along the outside border, plus marigold and basil on the ends. Such inter-planting goes a long way toward deterring harmful insects. For the really nasty critters, the farmers have an arsenal of pesticide "teas" made from neem tree oil or tobacco, both of which grow on site. They also inoculate each plant with mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi form a symbiotic relationship with the plant's roots, helping it fend off insects and disease, as well as improving nutrient uptake by 40%.
Plant health, however, is first and foremost a function of soil health. A healthy plant grown in healthy soil will be much better positioned to resist insect damage, disease, and drought. "Feed the soil, not the crop", is Miguel's philosophy, and next he shows me what his soil eats: worm compost.
In the vermiculture area, he points to 10 concrete beds, each 4 feet wide and 60 feet long. Vermiculture is the art of using worms to turn organic matter into natural fertilizer. Worms will ingest manure, kitchen scraps, chopped-up crop residues - almost any form of organic matter except oils and citrus rinds - and excrete the remains as "castings." Worm castings are rich in plant nutrients and also aid plants in disease and pest resistance. Miguel digs under the black soil and pulls out a writhing mass of California red-worms. It takes 70 days to make a batch of worm compost. One square metre produces 1,000 pounds of compost per year, which is 10 times more productive than if the parent material were composted without worms.
The feedstock is cow manure - a waste product at the dairy farm down the road, but a valuable resource here at Vivero Alamar. "To dominate in organic agriculture, you have to be a shit specialist," Miguel grins. "That's what drives it all." But, he warns, it takes a trained person to know how to make good worm compost. "You can't just dump a load of shit down and throw a few worms on top. You must have discipline."
An agronomist by training, Miguel was once a mid-level functionary in Cuba's conventional agricultural system. "I just sat at a desk pushing papers, and I hated it." When Cuba lost its agricultural inputs from the Soviet Union, his training was of little use to him or any other Cuban. Having seen how useless "the Monsanto revolution" is when confronted by Peak Oil, Miguel will never go back to using oil-based pesticides and fertilizers. "The Green Revolution is an agriculture of recipes," Miguel says, dismissively. "You don't need to know much about farming other than what fertilizers to apply and which pesticides to use."
Organic farming, on the other hand, requires the farmer to be knowledgeable in climate, weather patterns, soil types, and plant needs. "It's a much more complicated form of agriculture," Miguel points out. "It needs people who not only have an education, but also have passion. The agriculture of the 21st century is not the same as that of the 20th century. We have to work more intelligently, not necessarily harder."
He recalls that, in the past, agriculture in Cuba was demonized. "People preferred to do anything but farming." But today, Cuban farmers - especially urban farmers - have become respected members of society, some earning three times as much as doctors.
And, judging by the success of places like Vivero Alamar, they're doing an amazing job. The huge garden is a cooperative, which Miguel describes as "a private ownership model with socialist, egalitarian tendencies." Of the 164 workers, 22 have university degrees, two of which are doctorates. Seventy percent of the profit is distributed among the workers, 20% goes to farm infrastructure, and 10% goes to the government.
The fruits and vegetables grown at Vivero Alamar are sold six days a week to the people in the neighbourhood, and the garden also has contracts with Havana hospitals, schools, and retirement homes.
Miguel describes the benefits. Working hours have been reduced to seven hours a day in summer and six hours a day in winter. There are coffee breaks and free lunches, and workers can take home 1.5 pounds of vegetables each day they work. Workers can also gather after work for a beer at the on-site cantina, and bring their families there on weekends. The garden is both workplace and community centre.
"We even have hairdressers and manicurists for our women workers," Miguel laughs. Women hold prominent leadership roles. "We men get easily ruined by rum and cigars," says Miguel ruefully. "Women are better workers."
As might be expected, there's a long waiting list of Cubans wishing to work at Vivero Alamar.
Over the past 15 years, Cuba has become "the world's largest working model of sustainable agriculture," according to U.S. writer and activist Bill McKibben. At least in terms of vegetable and fruit production like the the kind I witnessed at Vivero Alamar, Cuba is indeed a model to emulate, demonstrating how an entire society can convert its agriculture to organic methods and thrive.
Granted, the country of Cuba still imports more than half its food and is far from being foodsecure. But in the capital, Havana, nearly all of the vegetables and most fruits now come from within a 30-mile radius, an accomplishment of which few cities in the world can boast.
Talking with Miguel Lopez, it's also clear that, whatever crisis led Cuba to organic farming, there are few backward glances.
[Sidebar]
"Seventy percent of the organic farm's profit is divided among the workers, 20% goes to farm infrastructure, and 10% goes to the government."
[Author Affiliation]
(Fred Bahnson travels the world as a Kellogg Food & Society fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. This report on his recent visit to Cuba was posted on the website of the Worldwatch Institute, whose Sustainable Agriculture Program highlights the benefits to farmers, consumers, and ecosystems that can flow from organic farming.)
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