Socialist Viewpoint

Cuba’s successful switch from chemical-intensive to sustainable agriculture carried the island nation back from the brink of a national food crisis brought on by the 1990 collapse of trade relations with the former socialist bloc. This fascinating case demonstrates that organic agriculture could actually work as the basis of an entire nation’s farming sector, putting the lie to the oft-repeated myth that “organic farming could never feed the world,” according to a new book-length report issued by Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy, a food policy think tank.

The multi-author report, Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming Food Production in Cuba, is largely written by Cuban experts on agricultural production, and represents the first time Cubans have made public the details of this enormous agricultural transformation.

For 30 years Cuba had fully embraced chemical pesticide- and fertilizer-intensive farming methods to meet its domestic food and export needs. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, Cuba, a target of a thirty-year economic embargo by the United States, lost its biggest trading partner and its ability to import food, and the chemicals and machines to grow it using conventional technology.

“Suddenly $8 billion a year disappeared from Cuban trade. Imports were reduced by 75 percent, including most foodstuffs, spare parts, agrochemicals, and industrial equipment,” according to Dr. Fernando Funes, a principal researcher in the book. “Unexpectedly a ‘modern’ and industrialized agricultural system had to face the challenge to increase food production while maintaining production for export, all with more than a 50-percent drop in the availability of [agricultural] inputs.”

Sustainable Agriculture explores the ambitious program Cuba embarked on during the ten years subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union, a program which fed the country’s population. By 1999 Cuba’s agricultural production had recovered and in some cases reached historic levels. While rural farms and farmers contributed greatly to this success, a key component was the emergence of urban farms and gardens as the principle source of fresh produce in cities.

“In the early 1990’s a strong urban agriculture was born in which thousands of people produce food using organic methods that help supply basic foodstuffs to urban families,” said Dr. Funes. “The effectiveness of organic techniques in urban gardening has been clearly demonstrated, and it is here that we are possibly closest to the ideal of sustainable agriculture, due in part to the prohibition of the use of chemicals because of the proximity to dense human populations.”

Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming Food Production in Cuba includes contributions from thirty-two of Cuba’s leading agriculture researchers, plus three American experts on Cuban agriculture, including Dr. Peter Rosset, the co-director of Food First. It also includes a prologue by Professor Miguel Altieri of the University of California at Berkeley, and an epilog by Professor Richard Levins of Harvard University.

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