Organic Consumers Association
Cuba Reader
www.organicconsumers.org
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Table of Contents
Cuba: A Successful Case Study of Sustainable Agriculture…….…………………….3
Cuba: a Clue to our Future?…………………………………………………………...10
Cuba's security in fresh produce………………………………………………………15
Castro Topples Pesticide in Cuba……………………………………………………...21
Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank………………………………………………….23
Right Livelihood Awards 1999 Acceptance speech by Maria del Carmen Pérez of
Cuba’s Organic Agriculture Group (GAO)…………………………………………..25
Cuba's Organic Agriculture and Food First Make Top 25 Censored Stories List…30
Development-Cuba: Renewable Energy to Light Up the Countryside……………...31
Global Exchange Cuba Fact Sheet…………………………………………………….34
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Cuba: A Successful Case Study of Sustainable Agriculture
By PETER M. ROSSET
Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food and the Environment,
Chapter 12, pp. 203-213: edited by Fred Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster and Frederick H.
Buttel (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000).
Our global food system is in the midst of a multifaceted crisis, with ecological,
economic, and social dimensions. To overcome that crisis, political and social changes
are needed to allow the widespread development of alternatives.
The current food system is productive–there should be no doubt about that–as per capita
food produced in the world has increased by 15 percent over the past thirty-five years.
But as that production is in ever fewer hands, and costs ever more in economic and
ecological terms, it becomes harder and harder to address the basic problems of hunger
and food access in the short term, let alone in a sustainable fashion. In the last twenty
years the number of hungry people in the world–excluding China–has risen by 60 million
(by contrast, in China the number of hungry people has fallen dramatically).
Cuba: A Successful Case Study of Sustainable Agriculture
Ecologically, there are impacts of industrial-style farming on groundwater through
pesticide and fertilizer runoff, on biodiversity through the spread of monoculture and a
narrowing genetic base, and on the very capacity of agroecosystems to be productive into
the future.
Economically, production costs rise as farmers are forced to use ever more expensive
machines and farm chemicals, while crop prices continue a several-decade-long
downward trend, causing a cost-price squeeze which has led to the loss of untold tens of
millions of farmers worldwide to bankruptcies. Socially, we have the concentration of
farmland in fewer and fewer hands as low crop prices make farming on a small scale
unprofitable (despite higher per acre total productivity of small farms), and agribusiness
corporations extend their control over more and more basic commodities.
Clearly the dominant corporate food system is not capable of adequately addressing the
needs of people or of the environment. Yet there are substantial obstacles to the
widespread adoption of alternatives. The greatest obstacles are presented by politicalcorporate power and vested interests, yet at times the psychological barrier to believing
that the alternatives can work seems almost as difficult to overcome. The oft-repeated
challenge is: "Could organic farming (or agroecology, local production, small farms,
farming without pesticides) ever really feed the entire population of a country?" Recent
Cuban history–the overcoming of a food crisis through self-reliance, small farms and
agroecological technology–shows us that the alternatives can indeed feed a nation, and
thus provides a crucial case study for the ongoing debate.
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A Brief History
Economic development in Cuba was molded by two external forces between the 1959
revolution and the 1989-90 collapse of trading relations with the Soviet bloc. One was the
U.S. trade embargo, part of an effort to isolate the island economically and politically.
The other was Cuba's entry into the Soviet bloc's international trade alliance with
relatively favorable terms of trade. The U.S. embargo essentially forced Cuba to turn to
the Soviet bloc, while the terms of trade offered by the latter opened the possibility of
more rapid development on the island than in the rest of Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Thus Cuba was able to achieve a more complete and rapid modernization than most
other developing countries. In the 1980s it ranked number one in the region in the
contribution of industry to its economy and it had a more mechanized agricultural sector
than any other Latin American country. Nevertheless, some of the same contradictions
that modernization produced in other third world countries were apparent in Cuba, with
Cuba's development model proving ultimately to be of the dependent type. Agriculture
was defined by extensive monocrop production of export crops and a heavy dependence
on imported agrichemicals, hybrid seeds, machinery, and petroleum. While
industrialization was substantial by regional standards, Cuban industry depended on
many imported inputs.
The Cuban economy as a whole was thus characterized by the contradiction between its
relative modernity and its function in the Soviet bloc's division of labor as a supplier of
raw agricultural commodities and minerals, and a net importer of both manufactured
goods and foodstuffs. In contrast to the situation faced by most third world countries, this
international division of labor actually brought significant benefits to the Cuban people.
Prior to the collapse of the socialist bloc, Cuba had achieved high marks for per capita
GNP, nutrition, life expectancy, and women in higher education, and was ranked first in
Latin America for the availability of doctors, low infant mortality, housing, secondary
school enrollment, and attendance by the population at cultural events.
The Cuban achievements were made possible by a combination of the government's
commitment to social equity and the fact that Cuba received far more favorable terms of
trade for its exports than did the hemisphere's other developing nations. During the 1980s
Cuba received an average price for its sugar exports to the Soviet Union that was 5.4
times higher than the world price. Cuba also was able to obtain Soviet petroleum in
return, part of which was re-exported to earn convertible currency. Because of the
favorable terms of trade for sugar, its production far outweighed that of food crops.
About three times as much land was devoted to sugar in 1989 as was used for food crops,
contributing to a pattern of food dependency, with as much as 57 percent of the total
calories in the Cuban diet coming from imports.
The revolutionary government had inherited an agricultural production system strongly
focused on export crops grown on highly concentrated land. The first agrarian reform of
1959 converted most of the large cattle ranches and sugarcane plantations into state
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farms. Under the second agrarian reform in 1962, the state took control of 63 percent of
all cultivated land.
Even before the revolution, individual peasant producers were a small part of the
agricultural scene. The rural economy was dominated by export plantations, and the
population as a whole was highly urbanized. That pattern intensified in subsequent years,
and by the late 1980s fully 69 percent of the island's population lived in urban areas. As
late as 1994 some 80 percent of the nation's agricultural land consisted of large state
farms, which roughly correspond to the expropriated plantation holdings of the prerevolutionary era. Only 20 percent of the agricultural land was in the hands of small
farmers, split almost equally among individual holders and cooperatives, yet this 20
percent produced more than 40 percent of domestic food production. The state farm
sector and a substantial portion of the cooperatives were highly modernized, with large
areas of monocrops worked under heavy mechanization, fertilizer and pesticide use, and
large-scale irrigation. This style of farming, originally copied from the advanced
capitalist countries by the Soviet Union, was highly dependent on imports of machinery,
petroleum, and chemicals. When trade collapsed with the socialist bloc, the degree to
which Cuba relied on monocrop agriculture proved to be a major weakness of the
revolution.
Onset of the Crisis
When trade relations with the Soviet bloc crumbled in late 1989 and 1990, the situation
turned desperate. In 1991 the government declared the "Special Period in Peacetime,"
which basically put the country on a wartime economy style austerity program. There
was an immediate 53 percent reduction in oil imports that not only affected fuel
availability for the economy, but also reduced to zero the foreign exchange that Cuba had
formerly obtained via the re-export of petroleum. Imports of wheat and other grains for
human consumption dropped by more than 50 percent, while other foodstuffs declined
even more. Cuban agriculture was faced with a drop of more than 80 percent in the
availability of fertilizers and pesticides, and more than 50 percent in fuel and other
energy sources produced by petroleum.
Suddenly, a country with an agricultural sector technologically similar to California's
found itself almost without chemical inputs, with sharply reduced access to fuel and
irrigation, and with a collapse in food imports. In the early 1990s average daily caloric
and protein intake by the Cuban population may have been as much as 30 percent below
levels in the 1980s. Fortunately, Cuba was not totally unprepared to face the critical
situation that arose after 1989. It had, over the years, emphasized the development of
human resources, and therefore had a cadre of scientists and researchers who could come
forward with innovative ideas to confront the crisis. While Cuba has only 2 percent of the
population of Latin America, it has almost 11 percent of the scientists.
Alternative Technologies
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In response to this crisis the Cuban government launched a national effort to convert the
nation's agricultural sector from high input agriculture to low input, self-reliant farming
practices on an unprecedented scale. Because of the drastically reduced availability of
chemical inputs, the state hurried to replace them with locally produced, and in most
cases biological, substitutes. This has meant biopesticides (microbial products) and
natural enemies to combat insect pests, resistant plant varieties, crop rotations and
microbial antagonists to combat plant pathogens, and better rotations, and cover cropping
to suppress weeds. Synthetic fertilizers have been replaced by biofertilizers, earthworms,
compost, other organic fertilizers, natural rock phosphate, animal and green manures, and
the integration of grazing animals. In place of tractors, for which fuel, tires, and spare
parts were largely unavailable, there has been a sweeping return to animal traction.
Small Farmers Respond to the Crisis
When the collapse of trade and subsequent scarcity of inputs occurred in 1989-90, yields
fell drastically throughout the country. The first problem was that of producing without
synthetic chemical inputs or tractors. Gradually the national ox herd was built up to
provide animal traction as a substitute for tractors, and the production of biopesticides
and biofertilizers was rapidly stepped up. Finally, a series of methods like
vermicomposting (earthworm composting) of residues and green manuring became
widespread. But the impact of these technological changes across sub-sectors of Cuban
agriculture was highly variable. The drop-off of yields in the state sector industrial-style
farms that average thousands of hectares has been resistant to recovery, with production
seriously stagnating well below pre-crisis levels for exports crops. Yet the small farm or
peasant sector (20 percent of farmed land) responded rapidly by quickly boosting
production above previous levels. How can we explain the difference between the stateand small-farm sectors?
It really was not all that difficult for the small farm sector to effectively produce with
fewer inputs. After all, today's small farmers are the descendants of generations of small
farmers, with long family and community traditions of low-input production. They
basically did two things: remembered the old techniques–like intercropping and
manuring–that their parents and grandparents had used before the advent of modern
chemicals, and simultaneously incorporated new biopesticides and biofertilizers into their
production practices.
State Farms Incompatible with the Alternative Technologies
The problems of the state sector, on the other hand, were a combination of low worker
productivity, a problem pre-dating the Special Period, and the complete inability of these
immense and technified management units to adapt to low-input technology. With regard
to the productivity problem, planners became aware several years ago that the
organization of work on state farms was profoundly alienating in terms of the relationship
between the agricultural worker and the land. Large farms of thousands of hectares had
their work forces organized into teams that would prepare the soil in one area, move on to
plant another, weed still another, and later harvest an altogether different area. Almost
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never would the same person both plant and harvest the same area. Thus no one ever had
to confront the consequences of doing something badly or, conversely, enjoy the fruits of
his or her own labor.
In an effort to create a more intimate relationship between farm workers and the land,
and to tie financial incentives to productivity, the government began several years ago to
experiment with a program called "linking people with the land." This system made small
work teams directly responsible for all aspects of production in a given parcel of land,
allowing remuneration to be directly linked to productivity. The new system was tried
before the Special Period on a number of state farms, and rapidly led to enormous
increases in production. Nevertheless it was not widely implemented at the time.
In terms of technology, scale effects are very different for conventional chemical
management and for low external input alternatives. Under conventional systems, a
single technician can manage several thousand hectares on a "recipe" basis by simply
writing out instructions for a particular fertilizer formula or pesticide to be applied with
machinery on the entire area. Not so for agroecological farming. Whoever manages the
farm must be intimately familiar with the ecological heterogeneity of each individual
patch of soil. The farmer must know, for example, where organic matter needs to be
added, and where pest and natural enemy refuges and entry points are. This partially
explains the inability of the state sector to raise yields with alternative inputs. Like the
productivity issue, it can only be effectively addressed through a re-linking of people
with the land.
By mid-1993, the state was faced with a complex reality. Imported inputs were largely
unavailable, but nevertheless the small farmer sector had effectively adapted to low input
production (although a secondary problem was acute in this sector, namely diversion of
produce to the black market). The state sector, on the other hand, was proving itself to be
an ineffective "white elephant" in the new historical conjuncture, incapable of adjusting.
The earlier success of the experimental "linking" program, however, and the success of
the peasant sector, suggested a way out. In September 1993 Cuba began radically
reorganizing its production in order to create the small-scale management units that are
essential for effective organic-style farming. This reorganization has centered on the
privatization and cooperativization of the unwieldy state sector.
The process of linking people with the land thus culminated in 1993, when the Cuban
government issued a decree terminating the existence of state farms, turning them into
Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPCs), a form of worker-owned enterprise or
cooperative. The 80 percent of all farmland that was once held by the state, including
sugarcane plantations, has now essentially been turned over to the workers.
The UBPCs allow collectives of workers to lease state farmlands rent free, in perpetuity.
Members elect management teams that determine the division of jobs, what crops will be
planted on which parcels, and how much credit will be taken out to pay for the purchase
of inputs. Property rights remain in the hands of the state, and the UBPCs must still meet
production quotas for their key crops, but the collectives are owners of what they
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produce. Perhaps most importantly, what they produce in excess of their quotas can now
be freely sold on the newly reopened farmers markets. This last reform, made in 1994,
offered a price incentive to farmers both to sell their produce through legal channels
rather than the black market, and also to make effective use of the new technologies.
The pace of consolidation of the UBPCs has varied greatly in their first years of life.
Today one can find a range from those where the only change is that the old manager is
now an employee of the workers, to those that truly function as collectives, to some in
which the workers are parceling the farms into small plots worked by groups of friends.
In almost all cases, the effective size of the management unit has been drastically
reduced. It is still too early to tell toward what final variety of structures the UBPCs will
evolve. But it is clear that the process of turning previously alienated farm workers into
farmers will take some time–it simply cannot be accomplished overnight–and many
UBPCs are struggling. Incentives are a nagging problem. Most UBPCs are stuck with
state production contracts for export crops like sugar and citrus. These still have fixed,
low prices paid by state marketing agencies, in contrast to the much higher prices that can
be earned for food crops. Typical UBPCs, not surprisingly then, have low yields in their
export crops, but also have lucrative side businesses selling food produced on spare land
or between the rows of their citrus or sugarcane.
Food Shortage Overcome
By mid-1995 the food shortage had been overcome, and the vast majority of the
population no longer faced drastic reductions of their basic food supply. In the 1996-97
growing season Cuba recorded its highest-ever production levels for ten of the thirteen
basic food items in the Cuban diet. The production increases came primarily from small
farms, and in the case of eggs and pork, from booming backyard production. The
proliferation of urban farmers who produce fresh produce has also been extremely
important to the Cuban food supply. The earlier food shortages and the rise in food prices
suddenly turned urban agriculture into a very profitable activity for Cubans, and once the
government threw its full support behind a nascent urban gardening movement, it
exploded to near epic proportions. Formerly vacant lots and backyards in all Cuban cities
now sport food crops and farm animals, and fresh produce is soldfrom private stands
throughout urban areas at prices substantially below those prevailing in the farmers
markets. There can be no doubt that urban farming, relying almost exclusively on organic
techniques, has played a key role in assuring the food security of Cuban families over the
past two to three years.
An Alternative Paradigm?
To what extent can we see the outlines of an alternative food system paradigm in this
Cuban experience? Or is Cuba just such a unique case in every way that we cannot
generalize its experiences into lessons for other countries? The first thing to point out is
that contemporary Cuba turned conventional wisdom completely on its head. We are told
that small countries cannot feed themselves, that they need imports to cover the
deficiency of their local agriculture. Yet Cuba has taken enormous strides toward self-
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reliance since it lost its key trade relations. We hear that a country can't feed its people
without synthetic farm chemicals, yet Cuba is virtually doing so. We are told that we
need the efficiency of large-scale corporate or state farms in order to produce enough
food, yet we find small farmers and gardeners in the vanguard of Cuba's recovery from a
food crisis. In fact, in the absence of subsidized machines and imported chemicals, small
farms are more efficient than very large production units. We hear time and again that
international food aid is the answer to food shortages–yet Cuba has found an alternative
in local production.
Abstracting from that experience, the elements of an alternative paradigm might
therefore be:
•
Agroecological technology instead of chemicals: Cuba has used intercropping,
locally produced biopesticdes, compost, and other alternatives to synthetic
pesticides and fertilizers.
•
Fair Prices for Farmers: Cuban farmers stepped up production in response to
higher crop prices. Farmers everywhere lack incentive to produce when prices are
kept artificially low, as they often are. Yet when given an incentive, they produce,
regardless of the conditions under which that production must take place.
•
Redistribution of Land: Small farmers and gardeners have been the most
productive of Cuban producers under low-input conditions. Indeed, smaller farms
worldwide produce much more per unit area than do large farms. In Cuba
redistribution was relatively easy to accomplish because the major part of the land
reform had already occurred, in the sense that there were no landlords to resist
further change.
•
Greater Emphasis on Local Production: People should not have to depend on the
vagaries of prices in the world economy, long distance transportation, and super
power "goodwill" for their next meal. Locally and regionally produced food offers
greater security, as well as synergistic linkages to promote local economic
development. Furthermore such production is more ecologically sound, as the
energy spent on international transport is wasteful and environmentally
unsustainable. By promoting urban farming, cities and their surrounding areas can
be made virtually self-sufficient in perishable foods, be beautified, and have
greater employment opportunities. Cuba gives us a hint of the underexploited
potential of urban farming.
Cuba in its Special Period has clearly been in a unique situation with respect to not being
able to use power machinery in the fields, forcing them to seek alternatives such as
animal traction. It is unlikely that either Cuba or any other country at its stage of
development would choose to abandon machine agriculture to this extent unless
compelled to do so. Yet there are important lessons here for countries struggling to
develop. Relatively small-scale farming, even using animals for traction, can be very
productive per unit of land, given technical support. And it is next to impossible to have
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ecologically sound farming at an extremely large scale. Although it is undeniable that for
countries wishing to develop industry and at the same time grow most of their own food,
some mechanization of agriculture will be needed, it is crucial to recognize–and the
Cuban example can help us to understand this—that modest-sized family farms and
cooperatives that use reasonably sized equipment can follow ecologically sound practices
and have increased labor productivity.
The Cuban experience illustrates that we can feed a nation's population well with a
small- or medium-sized farm model based on appropriate ecological technology, and in
doing so we can become more self-reliant in food production. Farmers must receive
higher returns for their produce, and when they do they will be encouraged to produce.
Capital intensive chemical inputs–most of which are unnecessary–be largely dispensed
with. The important lessons from Cuba that we can apply elsewhere, then, are
agroecology, fair prices, land reform, and local production, including urban agriculture.
Monthly Review Press
Peter M. Rosset is co-director of Food First/The Institute for Food and Development
Policy . He has a Ph.D. in Agricultural Ecology and teaches at Stanford University.
***
Cuba: a Clue to our Future?
Brian Snyder
April 02, 2003
New Farm
I know that the world is weak
And must soon fall to the ground,
And, then, midst the quiet profound
The gentle brook will speak.
José Martí, 1891
April 2, 2003: Our air-conditioned bus was a haven of comfort, in a land where few of
the "comforts of home" as we know them exist. The well-cushioned seats reclined to
allow for an occasional and much needed nap along the route, but instead I usually sat
leaning forward, my attention riveted out the window.
The contrasts of metropolitan Havana are difficult to describe without pictures, many
pictures really. Most residential buildings remain in sorry shape, even as those structures
more important for drawing tourists (hotels, museums, historic landmarks, etc.) undergo
thorough restorations everywhere.
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There is much poverty in Cuba, for sure, but there are also signs of promise that kept my
eyes glued to the oncoming landscape outside the bus. For amid the substantial ruins of a
society that has faced tremendous adversity, there is agriculture—agriculture
everywhere—agriculture that the high priests of corporate agribusiness have told us can
never be possible in our own country.
As part of what has been called the "largest ever fact-finding delegation destined for
Cuba," I was joined by Penn State IPM specialist and PASA board member Lyn Garling
and Tim Bowser, executive director of the FoodRoutes Network (www.foodroutes.org),
as part of a dynamic group of about ninety food and farming specialists from all over the
United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean on a study tour of Cuban agriculture.
The trip was organized by the California-based Food First/Institute for Food and
Development Policy (www.foodfirst.org), and took place over a two-week period
bridging February and March of this year.
Why sustainable ag has become a guiding principle in Cuba
To put it bluntly, I think most if not all of us on the trip were stunned to find out how
central the concept of sustainable agriculture has become in Cuban society, and likely
were equally stunned afterward in returning to face the reality of our situation in this
country. It is worth noting, however, that not all of Cuba's success in this regard has been
by design; historical consequence has played a significant role.
Following the Revolution that was complete at the beginning of 1959, Cuba was pushed
into a mostly exclusive trading relationship with the Soviet Union and other socialist
countries by the U.S. trade embargo, now more than forty years old. Despite the
embargo, or "blockade," as it is called in Cuba, this arrangement worked pretty well for
the growing Cuban economy for about thirty years, until the collapse of the Soviet Union
beginning in 1989. Cuban exports during this period were mostly sugar, tobacco, and
nickel, which they traded for fuel, food, medicine, and the necessary equipment and
supplies to support large-scale conventional agriculture.
The seeds of agricultural change, however, were present throughout the thirty years
following the Revolution. We were reminded on the trip that agrarian reform had always
been a priority of the Cuban socialist regime, and many of us were left with our jaws
hanging open to hear the story that in 1963, Fidel Castro attended graduation ceremonies
at the Universidad Agraria de la Habana (Agrarian University of Havana) and personally
handed each graduate a copy of a newly published book called Silent Spring by Rachel
Carson.
From the beginning, the Revolution had sought to guarantee adequate food for every
man, woman, and child in Cuba as a birthright, and the desire had been to supply as much
of this food as possible through production using fewer chemicals on smaller farms or
farm cooperatives located close to where people actually live.
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The large industrialized and foreign-owned farms that previously exported for the profit
of absentee corporate owners were nationalized, and the priorities of production changed.
Exports continued, but were considered mostly a necessary evil to obtain the goods not
immediately available within the confines of this island nation.
Sustainable Ag in Cuba Defined
The following list of current initiatives was presented to the Food First delegation by Luis
García, an agronomist who is Director of The Center for the Study of Sustainable
Agriculture at the Agrarian University of Havana. Entitled "The Cuban Model for
Sustainable Agriculture," the list reflects challenges facing Cuba's farmers since the
beginning of the current economic crisis, but serves also as a pretty good menu of
priorities for sustainable farmers anywhere.
• Integrated Pest Management
• Organic fertilizers and biofertilizers
• Soil conservation and recuperation
• Animal traction and alternative energy
• Inter cropping and crop rotation
• Mixing crops and animal production
• Alternative mechanization
• Urban Agriculture and community participation
• Alternative Veterinary Medicine
Adjusting to local conditions
• Reversing rural migration to cities
• Increasing cooperative use of land
• Improving agrarian research
• Changing agrarian education
But with the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba was plunged into a desperate food crisis
almost overnight, which dramatically quickened the pace of agricultural reform. The
United States, perhaps sensing an opportunity to bring about a new capitalist
counterrevolution, tightened the embargo with legislation in 1992 (Torricelli) and again
in 1996 (Helms-Burton), making things even worse for the Cuban people.
Throughout our travels, speaker after speaker emphasized with considerable emotion the
impact of the historical one-two punch of Soviet trade evaporation and U.S. legislation,
but somehow each person avoided sounding bitter in retrospect. Instead, they expressed
pride in what they have achieved in the face of overwhelming circumstances.
Lacking the feed concentrates, fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals that used to
come through trade, the people of this society, with the support of their government and
universities, launched a massive campaign to make widespread, diversified, and welldistributed organic agriculture a reality. The results are amazing, if not yet complete, and
provide convincing testimony to the enduring power of the revolutionary spirit still
apparent in Cuban culture.
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The rise of urban farming
One major strategy to ease the crisis was to implement urban agriculture, with folks
farming their backyards, or bringing new life to abandoned lots or defunct manufacturing
sites. Because of free-market incentives established by the government in response to the
crisis, there is now enough organic produce grown within the city limits of Havana to
feed each of the city's 2.5 million residents a minimum of 300 grams (about 10 ounces) of
fruits and vegetables each day.
Some of the urban farmers we met had left very stable professional careers to engage in
agriculture for the first time. For instance, we met "Chucho," a former veterinarian who
had originally switched to farming in order to keep his children fed. As he put it, "When
we realized we only had one egg per day to split between two kids, we decided to make
the change before it was too late." He and his wife, a former chemist, now operate two
farms, making considerably more money than they did in their former careers.
Another strategy has been to divide the large, state-owned farms into smaller
cooperatives, or Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC), as they are called. Our
group visited one that employed fifty-five farmers farming a total of about eight acres,
with each of the farmers earning approximately four times the national average monthly
wage. They achieve this despite the fact that such farms must first provide, as part of their
social obligation, food for local schools, hospitals, and nursing homes before selling on
the open market.
The key to the success of urban agriculture in Cuba is that the farms are located in the
same neighborhoods as their customers. For instance, another farmer we met, named
"America," grows on a lot adjacent to her house with help from her neighbors. After
meeting her social obligation, she sells produce from a refurbished railroad car that now
serves as a curbside farm stand. Such stands in and around Havana often attract hundreds,
and even thousands of customers each day.
Another key has been the reinvention and rejuvenation of university Extension services.
Throughout the country, extensionists, as they are called, adhere strictly to a model of
"popular education" that is described as "emancipatory" in nature. By this model, the
teacher is never considered more important than students, but both learn and share in the
process together.
The principle goal of Extension services in Cuba is to integrate new technology in
support of traditional production systems. Farmers are thought to be the best judge of
what to produce and how it should be done. As one extenstionist put it, "What the farmer
would not eat, the farmer should not grow."
Success in achieving sustainability of Cuban livestock production lags behind that
achieved with vegetables and fruit. It is impressive, though, that pork and poultry
production, now occurring in more diversified systems on small farms, have reached
13
levels that existed before the crisis, when most all animals were raised in conventional
confinement facilities. And university research conducted in Cuba, using sustainability
indicators they have developed, has concluded that a 20-cow dairy provides the
maximum level of efficiency.
The innovative spirit is alive and well in Cuba
Throughout the tour, on every stop and around every corner, we found evidence of an
innovative spirit that was reminiscent of many sustainably run operations in Pennsylvania
and elsewhere in the United States. But in contrast to the common attitude in our own
homeland, the success of such innovation is seen by Cubans as critical to the future
security of their country.
As an example, and in light of the crisis faced since 1989, two different Cuban officials
made the following comments: "Sustainable agriculture has become an integral part of
our national defense . . . a ‘war' of the people," and "Our soils are a strategic natural
resource." These are the words of leaders who knew keenly that mass starvation might
very well be the alternative.
The Cuban farmers we met along the way beamed withpride as they told of what they
had achieved against overwhelming odds. Starting with the aim to feed their own
families, they now feed their communities and, for the most part, their society.
Few, if any advocates for sustainable agriculture in our own country would wish to swap
our government or economic circumstances with those found in Cuba. But it sure doesn't
hurt to see an example of how we might utilize the principles of sustainability in the
United States to avoid our own Special Period in the future.
For More Information
Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance, edited by Fernando Funes, Luis Garcia,
Martin Bourgue, Nilda Perez and Peter Rosset, published in English by Food First Books,
2002.
The Greening of Cuba, a Food First video directed by Jaime Kibben. Order from LPC
Group at 1-800-343-4499, or visit the book store on the Food First site.
Intensive vs. Extensive Agriculture
Of the many interesting perspectives gained from listening to farmers and other
agricultural specialists in Cuba, one of the most intriguing was the concept of "extensive
agriculture."
Cubans use the term "intensive" to describe industrialized systems of agriculture that are
very familiar to us in the United States, like confined livestock feeding operations and
mono-cultural cropping practices that depend heavily on chemical inputs.
14
But in describing the alternative, Cubans talk about "extensive" systems that consist of
vast networks of sustainably run, smaller plots of ground that emphasize cooperative
labor, local marketing, farm-based enterprises and a farm's inherent responsibility to the
social fabric of its community.
In contrast to intensive agriculture, extensive agriculture represents an altogether
different philosophical orientation. Cubans use the word "extensive" to emphasize how
big their plans for establishing sustainable food and farming systems really are.
Brian Snyder is the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable
Agriculture (PASA). If any person or group is interested in hosting a more detailed
presentation, including slides, of PASA's participation in the Food First delegation to
Cuba, please contact Brian directly at [email protected].
***
Cuba's security in fresh produce
Eliza Barclay/September 12, 2003
Across the Florida Straits from Miami in the capital city of a country ranked 90th in GDP
by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), students in Havana, Cuba, are
munching on a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, picked by their own hands in
the school garden, or grown nearby in urban organic gardens.
In the early 1990s, the average Cuban dinner table did not boast a spread even remotely
close to the bounty enjoyed by many today. During these years, when foreign economic
support disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union, average caloric and protein
intake dropped to nearly 30 percent below 1980s levels.
Faced with the possibility of widespread starvation, the Cuban government foresaw that a
full-scale mobilization of domestic resources, both human and natural, would be required
in order to increase production to meet the demands of a hungry populace. And with few
options to import food given the stringency of the U.S. embargo, Cuba turned over a new
leaf by converting almost entirely to an organic production system within 10 years.
Cuba's nationwide commitment to food self-sufficiency without reliance on chemical or
mechanical technologies has borne some startlingly successful results, not only in terms
of food production but also in the development of a more personalized food culture,
woven deeply into patterns of food consumption, nutrition, and community.
These trends, which many sustainable agriculture experts enthusiastically champion, also
appear to be on the brink of a major confrontation with the powerful forces of the global
market, from which Cuba was virtually exempt until 2001, when U.S. policy toward
agricultural exports to Cuba began to shift slightly. The strength of Cuba’s food security,
15
with all its growing bureaucratic and market support, will inevitably be put to the test as
small but increasing concessions are made to expand trade between Cuba and its closest
potential trading partner, the United States.
Collapse and Revival
In 1989, as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent retraction of
petroleum, farm equipment, food subsidies, and the preferential trade relationship that
had come with Soviet support of the Cuban state, the country lapsed into a phase of dire
food, energy, and morale shortages, known as the "Special Period" or periodo especial.
Cuba had been under the thumb of various colonial empires from Spain and the United
States since the 16th century. The Soviet Union, during its phase of supporting Cuba,
continued with a system that encouraged the production of sugar and tobacco for foreign
markets, leaving little land for food production. In 1989, however, no one came to scoop
up the Caribbean island and ladle in more subsidies, and the Cubans felt a new sense of
excision from the global market.
Cubans from all walks of life suffered during this period; shortages were reminiscent of
war time, though the country was diplomatically at peace. The crisis was worsened by the
tightening of the U.S. trade embargo through two pieces of legislation in 1992 and 1996,
zapping any possibility of Cuba looking outside its boundaries for assistance — except to
a few friendly governments like Venezuela and Nicaragua.
The agricultural model inherited from the 1980s was not a particularly advantageous one.
Farming in Cuba before the Special Period was characterized by large quantities of
chemical inputs in a highly monocultural and intensive system. In this period, Cuban
farms had been using roughly 200 kilograms of nitrates per hectare. Without the Soviets
delivering these expensive inputs at subsidized rates, Cuban farmers and average hungry
citizens had no choice but to look to alternative models in developing a new agricultural
system.
After 10 years of hard work and major food shortages, most Cubans can feel secure in
having access to fresh, nutritious food through the extensive network of intensively
cultivated urban gardens, or organoponicos, and state-run farms and cooperatives outside
the cities. They can also take comfort in the fact that nearly all the food they eat comes
from a self-sufficient agricultural system that relies only minimally on pesticides,
fertilizers, or expensive machinery.
Given the highly restrictive nature of the U.S. embargo on trade with and from Cuba, the
Cubans have been forced to virtually sink or swim in terms of procuring or growing food.
Because of the terms of the trade sanctions, Cuba has been ineligible to receive food aid
from international aid agencies.
Peter Rosset, co-director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy based
in Oakland, Calif., has been researching food issues in Cuba since the early 1990s. He
16
said, "Cuba has resisted three things: the blockade of the U.S. embargo, the fallout of the
Soviet Union, and the industrial green revolution and economic globalization that has
taken its toll elsewhere in the world."
Fortunately, with a combination of solid scientific expertise and institutional will, Cuba
was able to replace conventional farming practices with more practical and affordable
alternatives. By charting new courses in research, land management, and market supply,
government officials and scientists were able to avert a full hunger crisis and activate
farmers and urban citizens to dedicate themselves to meeting food demands.
Key ingredients in the new agricultural model are the urban agriculture movement;
traditional farming techniques like composting and intercropping (growing two crops
together that benefit each other by warding off particular pests); new nontoxic
biopesticides and biofertilizers; worker-managed collectives; quotas for farmers to insure
adequate supply for the whole country; and opening farmers' markets where excess food
crops can be sold by farmers for profit.
The government also addressed land availability for domestic food production by
redistributing parcels of land that had formerly operated as cane plantations for the sugar
industry, which exchanged its products for oil from the Soviet Union. Each of these
initiatives has created a fertile environment for technological innovation in organic
production and economic incentives that encourage more people to farm.
According to Rosset, "Cuba has been able to change farming techniques in order to
survive, but it has been an ongoing process of institutionalizing the farming alternatives."
Throughout the past decade, government agencies like the Ministries of Agriculture,
Health, Education, and Communication have been developing increasingly coordinated
efforts to integrate agricultural extension education, nutrition education, and outreach to
the Cuban people. The government has committed to make fresh fruits and vegetables
available to every citizen, but so far, they haven't quite managed to do this. Cuban
authorities say that at this point, availability is not so much of an issue. Instead, they are
now working on ways to bring down the prices so that even the poorest consumers can
enjoy the bounty.
Urban Agriculture on the Rise
Cuba's commitment to sustainable farming practices demonstrates how huge
improvements in food production can be achieved even under stressful economic and
environmental conditions. Urban agriculture has played an integral role in achieving food
security, and Cuba is at the vanguard of the global urban agriculture movement. In 2002,
Cuba produced 3.2 million tons of food in urban farms and gardens.
In 2002, more than 35,000 hectares (86,450 acres) of urban land were dedicated to the
intensive production of fresh fruits, vegetables, and spices. According to Dr. Nelso
Campanioni Concepción, deputy director of the National Institute for Fundamental
17
Research on Tropical Agriculture (INIFAT), "The goal of urban agriculture is to gain the
most food from every square meter of available space. The secret to the success of urban
agriculture in Cuba has been the introduction of new technologies and varieties and an
increase in areas farmed."
Another factor favoring urban agriculture is that Cuba does not have the transport
infrastructure — especially since the Soviets stopped delivering fuel — to deliver large
quantities of food from rural areas to the cities on a regular basis. This means that urban
residents benefit not only from feeding themselves but also by guaranteeing the freshness
of their daily sustenance.
Extra food is shared in the community. Retirement home and hospital kitchens receive
anywhere from a steady supply to seasonal, fluctuating donations from neighborhood
gardens. These gardens, coupled with the comprehensive rural and suburban farms, play
a critical role in completing the sense of food security that Cubans now enjoy.
Nutritious and Delicious
Filberto Samora, the administrator of one of the oldest organoponicos in Havana which
won recognition from President Fidel Castro, said, "This organoponico is very much a
part of the neighborhood. We give food to the school two blocks away, and all the
neighbors come to buy food from the stand."
Samora's organoponico grows bok choi, lettuces, and cilantro, but farmers from outlying
areas of Havana are also allowed to sell their produce at Samora's stand. The
organoponico facility has also begun to produce its own seeds and compost for
distribution to other farms in Havana.
The farmstands and neighborhood gardens have not only provided a consistent source of
fresh and affordable food, but the fact that fresh produce is now readily available has also
played a critical role in guiding the Cuban diet in a more healthy direction.
"After the Special Period, once food was plentiful again, people were stuffing their faces
with foods like meats and sugars that they had been deprived of," said Madelaine
Vásques Gálvez, owner of El Bambú, a vegetarian restaurant outside Havana, and editor
of Germinal, a journal that focuses on food education for sustainability. "We now know
that there are many diseases associated with diets high in sugar and fat."
Vásques has been involved with ecological cuisine in Cuba for 11 years. Her cooking
style utilizes a wide range of native fruits and vegetables grown in the restaurant’s own
permaculture garden. Permaculture is an approach that emphasizes holistic design and
maintenance so that the food system mirrors a biologically productive ecosystem. In
other parts of the restaurant as well, Vásques sticks to ecological principles. For example,
her stoves are powered by solar panels.
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The Cuban diet has not always included copious amounts of vegetables, especially not
those of the leafy green persuasion. As strange as it seems to some Cubans, especially the
older generations whose diets have primarily depended on Soviet subsidies, vegetables
appear to be catching on. There are now nine vegetarian restaurants in Havana, and urban
gardeners from all walks of life expound upon the importance of fresh food.
The government and market have worked together to both feed the people and nurture the
soil, and so diversity in diet has evolved, mirroring the crop diversity in the field. In the
past few years, the Ministry of Health has become strongly supportive of and involved
with urban gardening and the diversification of the Cuban diet.
Samora said, "It is still too early to determine where the new program of educating
children on the healthy aspects of vegetables is really having an impact on their concept
of what tastes good. We do find, though, that they want vegetables just as much as their
parents when they come to the stand."
Secure in Food, but Secure in Future?
The news of Cuba's success has been slowly leaking out since the early 1990s, and the
country is beginning to take on legendary status as a model for sustainable agriculture
and local food production in the eyes of environmental advocates, farmers, and
development specialists. Already lauded for years by the steady stream of sustainable
farming gurus from around the world who have made the pilgrimage to observe the
success of organic and local food production, Cuba's experiment with sustainable
agriculture has succeeded beyond its trial period.
American farmers have been shuttled to Cuba in "fact-finding missions" and "reality
tours" by crafty NGOs who have obtained the highly coveted U.S. Department of
Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) licenses allowing them to sponsor
travel to Cuba for educational purposes. Whether many of these trips will be allowed to
continue is unclear; in March 2003, OFAC announced the end of people-to-people
exchanges. Most groups who have had the appropriate licenses are scheduled to lose
them by December 2003.
But a rapidly approaching future of shifting economic opportunities poses serious
questions and potential risks to this Cuba’s model, regarded as precious by so many of its
advocates.
Despite the embargo, in 2000, President Clinton signed the Trade Sanctions Reform and
Export Enhancement Act (TSRA), which re-authorized the direct commercial export of
food products and agricultural products via cash transactions from the United States to
Cuba — but not from Cuba to the United States.
In September 2002, after the U.S. Food and Agribusiness Exhibition took place in
Havana, the Cuban government purchased more than $91.9 million in food and
19
agricultural products from subsidiaries of U.S. companies based in Latin America and
Canada and directly from U.S. companies.
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), one of the world's largest exporters of cereal grains and
oilseeds, signed a $19 million contract for soybean oil, soybeans, soy proteins, corn,
margarine, and rice. In 2001, ADM’s lobbying — combined with wreckage in Cuba after
Hurricane Michelle — was the tipping point that persuaded the Bush Administration to
allow the first sale of goods directly from the United States to Cuba since 1962.
The American Corn Growers Association (ACGA), which, to date, has not taken up trade
negotiations with Cuba, would be interested in trade sometime in the future, said its chief
executive officer.
"We should be exporting to any nation that needs food," said CEO Larry Mitchell.
With Cuba's well-documented ability to feed itself, why would the Cuban government be
interested in spending $91.9 million on food imports?
John S. Kavulich II, president of the U.S. Trade and Economic Council based in New
York City, said, "There is a strong political component to the Cubans' decision to
purchase food products from us. Of the products purchased since 2001, nearly all of them
are available from other sources at better prices."
Kavulich cited rice as an example. The Cubans could buy rice from Vietnam at a
significantly lower price, but they choose to purchase from purveyors like ADM instead.
Food First's Rosset agrees. "I believe the Cubans are buying from the U.S. as a political
gesture. They hope the food corporations will lobby the U.S. government on their behalf
to lift the embargo."
Aside from the disruption in self-sufficiency, there is also growing concern that if the
embargo is eventually lifted, global agricultural giants will persuade farmers to drop their
organic methods in favor of high pesticide and fertilizer usage.
However, Dr. Nelso Campanioni Concepción of INIFAT responded: "We are not going
back. We will increase production, but we will not degrade the environment doing it."
Speculating on the possible institutional reactions to a global market that peddles
genetically engineered seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers, Rosset said, "There is a
possibility of a negative impact on the Cuban model. There may be a short term increase
in pesticide use and a stronger interest in biotechnology, but they may not last because
they may not fulfill Cuban agricultural needs."
The members of the U.S. Trade and Economic Council Inc. seem to be chomping at the
Cuban market bit. Kavulich said, "We have many members who have begun discussions
20
with the Cubans over a wide array of products like food and hospitality services and
biotech products."
As of now, the only McDonald's in Cuba is located on the Guantánamo Bay naval base,
which has belonged to the United States since 1934. Cuban fast food chains exist and are
popular, but they do not dominate the landscape or pepper the national concept of food,
largely because advertising does not exist. If McDonald's and U.S.-produced corn, peas,
and carrots in a can are eventually allowed into Cuba, it will still be up to the Cubans
whether they prefer the foreign food to their own backyard-grown papayas, yucca, and
lettuce.
Eliza Barclay is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
***
Castro Topples Pesticide in Cuba
Renee Kjartan, Washington Free Press
August 7, 2000
Organic farming -- often considered an insignificant part of the food supply -can feed an entire country concludes a report by the Oakland, CA-based
Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First, a group advocating
sustainable farming.
In Cuba, many of the foods people eat every day are grown without synthetic
fertilizers and toxic pesticides, the report, Cultivating Havana: Urban Agriculture
and Food Security in the Years of Crisis, found.
Cuba's organic food movement developed in response to a crisis. Before the
revolution that threw out dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, and to some extent
during the years of Soviet support for Cuba, the island followed a typical pattern
of colonial food production: It produced luxury export crops while importing
food for its own people. In 1990 over 50% of Cuba's food came from imports.
"In the Caribbean, food insecurity is a direct result of centuries of colonialism that
prioritized the production of sugar and other cash crops for export, neglecting
food crops for domestic consumption," the report says. In spite of efforts by the
revolutionary government to correct this situation, Cuba continued in this mold
until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989.
The withdrawal of Soviet aid meant that 1,300,000 tons of chemical fertilizers,
17,000 tons of herbicides, and 10,000 tons of pesticides, could no longer be
imported, according to the report.
One of Cuba's responses to the shock was to develop "urban agriculture,"
intensifying the previously established National Food Program, which aimed
at taking thousands of poorly utilized areas, mainly around Havana, and turning
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them into intensive vegetable gardens. Planting in the city instead of only in the
countryside reduced the need for transportation, refrigeration, and other scarce
resources.
The plan succeeded beyond anyone's dreams. By 1998 there were over 8000
urban farms and community gardens run by over 30,000 people in and around
Havana.
Urban agriculture is now a "major element of the Havana cityscape," the Food
First report says, and the model is now being copied throughout the country,
with production growing at 250-350% per year. Today, food from the urban
farms is grown almost entirely with active organic methods, the report says.
Havana has outlawed the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture within city
limits.
Martin Bourque, Food First's program director for sustainable agriculture, said
the goal of the National Urban Agriculture program is to produce enough fresh
fruits and vegetables for everyone, and that some cities have surpassed this. He
added that farmers are some of the best-paid people in Cuba, and "organic foods
are for all Cubans, not just for the rich."
Autoconsumos, or self-provisioning gardens, are found at schools and workplaces, with 376 in Havana today. The produce usually goes to the lunchroom
of the host institution, and the rest goes to the workers at low prices.
There are 451 organoponicos, raised container beds with a high ratio of compost
to soil and intensive planting, in Havana, growing and selling vegetables, herbs,
and spices directly to the public.
The rest of the farming is done in huertos intensivos, or intensive gardens, city
plots planted for maximum yield per area and incorporating organic matter
directly into the soil. There is almost no pest problem because of the "incredible
biodiversity" of the gardens. "We are reaching biological equilibrium. The pest
populations are now kept under control by the constant presence of predators
in the ecosystem. I have little need for application of any control substance," the
president of one huerto intensivo said.
There are other programs aimed at increasing small-scale urban and suburban
production of everything from eggs to rabbits to flowers to medicinal plants to
honey, Bourque said. Many rural homes now raise their own staples, such as
beans and viandas (traditional root and tuber crops), and small-animal raising
has also spread dramatically, especially in the suburban and rural areas.
At first, Bourque said, sustainable agriculture was seen as a way to "suffer
through" the shock of the Soviet withdrawal. "When they began this effort,
most policy-makers could not imagine any significant amount of rice being
22
grown in Cuba without the full green-revolution technical package (e.g. high
off-farm inputs). But by 1997 small-scale rice production had reached 140,000
tons, 65% of national production. Today everyone agrees that sustainable
agriculture has played a major role in feeding the country and is saving Cuba
millions of dollars," that would otherwise go "to the international pesticide cartel,"
Bourque said.
According to official figures, in 1999 organic urban agriculture produced 65%
of Cuba's rice, 46% of the fresh vegetables, 38% of the non-citrus fruits, 13%
of the roots, tubers, and plantains, and 6% of the eggs, Bourque said.
He noted that food is "still very expensive in spite of rationing programs designed
to make sure everyone has access to the basics, but Cuba has clearly grown itself
out of the food crisis of the mid-1990s." In the last year Food First has taken
dozens of farmers, researchers, academics, and activists from around the world
to learn from Cuba's organic agricultural experience.
***
Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank
By Jim Lobe
Inter Press Service
April 30, 2001
WASHINGTON -- World Bank President James Wolfensohn Monday extolled the
Communist government of President Fidel Castro for doing "a great job" in providing for
the social welfare of the Cuban people. His remarks followed Sunday's publication of the
Bank's 2001 edition of 'World Development Indicators' (WDI), which showed Cuba as
topping virtually all other poor countries in health and education statistics. It also showed
that Havana has actually improved its performance in both areas despite the continuation
of the US trade embargo against it and the end of Soviet aid and subsidies for the
Caribbean island more than ten years ago.
"Cuba has done a great job on education and health," Wolfensohn told reporters at the
conclusion of the annual spring meetings of the Bank and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF). "They have done a good job, and it does not embarrass me to admit it." His
remarks reflect a growing appreciation in the Bank for Cuba's social record, despite
recognition that Havana's economic policies are virtually the antithesis of the
"Washington Consensus", the neo-liberal orthodoxy that has dominated the Bank's policy
advice and its controversial structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) for most of the last
20 years. Some senior Bank officers, however, go so far as to suggest that other
developing countries should take a very close look at Cuba's performance. "It is in some
sense almost an anti-model," according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the
Bank's Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages
covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators. Indeed, Cuba is living
23
proof in many ways that the Bank's dictum that economic growth is a precondition for
improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not downright wrong.
The Bank has insisted for the past decade that improving the lives of the poor was its core
mission. Besides North Korea, Cuba is the one developing country which, since 1960,
has never received the slightest assistance, either in advice or in aid, from the Bank. It is
not even a member, which means that Bank officers cannot travel to the island on official
business. The island's economy, which suffered devastating losses in production after the
Soviet Union withdrew its aid, especially its oil supplies, a decade ago, has yet to fully
recover. Annual economic growth, fuelled in part by a growing tourism industry and
limited foreign investment, has been halting and, for the most part, anemic. Moreover, its
economic policies are generally anathema to the Bank. The government controls virtually
the entire economy, permitting private entrepreneurs the tiniest of spaces.
It heavily subsidizes virtually all staples and commodities; its currency is not convertible
to anything. It retains tight control over all foreign investment, and often changes the
rules abruptly and for political reasons. At the same time, however, its record of social
achievement has not only been sustained; it's been enhanced, according to the WDI. It
has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999,
which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations.
It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank's Vice President for Development
Policy who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.
By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999; Chile's was
down to ten; and Costa Rica, 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a
whole, the average was 30 in 1999. Similarly, the mortality rate for children under five in
Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50 percent
lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba's achievement.
For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999. "Six for every 1,000 in infant
mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable," according to Ritzen, a former
education minister in the Netherlands. "You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has
done exceedingly well in the human development area."
Indeed, in Ritzen's own field the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment
for both girls and boys reached 100 percent in 1997, up from 92 percent in 1990. That
was as high as most developed nations, higher even than the US rate and well above 8090 percent rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries. "Even in
education performance, Cuba's is very much in tune with the developed world, and much
higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile."
It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about
6.7 percent of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin America and
Caribbean countries and even Singapore. There were 12 primary pupils for every Cuban
teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing
country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one. The
24
average youth (ages 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at
seven percent. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is seven
percent, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.
"Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40 percent to zero within ten years," said
Ritzen. "If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say
it's not possible." Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product
(GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada's rate. Its ratio of
5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world. The question that these
statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated.
The answer given here is probably not. "What does it is the incredible dedication,"
according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the
late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since. "Doctors in
Cuba can make more driving cabs and working in hotels, but they don't. They're just very
dedicated," he said. Ritzen agreed that the Cuban experience probably cannot be applied
wholesale to another poor country, but insisted that developing countries can learn a great
deal by going to the island. "Is the experience of Cuba useful in other countries? The
answer is clearly yes, and one is hopeful that political barriers would not prevent the use
of the Cuban experience in other countries. "Here, I am pretty hopeful, in that I see many
developing countries taking the Cuban experience well into account." But the Cuban
experience may not be replicable, he went on, because its ability to provide so much
social support "may not be easy to sustain in the long run". "It's not so much that the
economy may collapse and be unable to support such a system, as it is that any transition
after Castro passes from the scene would permit more freedom for people to pursue their
desires for a higher standard of living."
The trade-off, according to Ritzen, may work against the welfare system which exists
now. "It is a system which on the one hand is extremely productive in social areas and
which, on the other, does not give people opportunities for more prosperity."
***
Right Livelihood Awards 1999~Acceptance speech by Maria del Carmen Pérez of
Cuba’s Organic Agriculture Group (GAO)
Madam Speaker, Honorable Guests, Members of the Swedish Parliament, Members of
the Right Livelihood Award Jury.
The Organic Agriculture Group of the Cuban Association of Agricultural and Forestry
Technicians was overjoyed to learn that it had been conceded the distinction of the "Right
Livelihood Award" for its work to develop the country's organic agriculture movement.
The Group met immediately to communicate the news and to reflect on its scope and
national significance in the desire to give fair recognition and ensure that no involuntary
omission dimmed the collective elation that was by then being shared by many
colleagues and followers of this movement in our country.
25
Always present in these reflections were the pioneers of the organic agriculture
movement in Cuba in the extraordinary work of such predecessors as Juan Tomás Roig,
Jesús Canizares, José Luis Amargos and Julián Acuna, among other illustrious figures of
our agronomy, who trained many generations of Cubans in an agrarian culture based on
concepts and knowledge very much in accord with what the present-day organic
movement advocates.
With the triumph of the Revolution in Cuba, a process of change was initiated in our
agriculture and, in the decade of the '70s, the nation began to introduce modifications
leading to a more rational agriculture of fewer inputs, more in consonance with our
reality. A strong policy of replacing imported inputs and raw materials was introduced,
monetary and material savings were stimulated in all sectors, while emphasis was laid on
economic awareness and self-sufficiency. At the same time, the country's research
institutes reoriented their goals and strategies toward new work programs.
During the decade of the '80s, research, extension and development were increased with
regard to input-replacement techniques such as the biological pest-control program, the
use of leguminous plants in protein banks for cattle-raising, the use of biofertilizers for
other crops, minimum cultivation, and the regionalization of varieties adapted to existing
input levels, etc.
At the beginning of the decade of the '90s, in what became known as its "Special
Period", the country was confronted by the need to increase its food production, reduce
its inputs by more than one-half and, at the same time, maintain its production of export
crops.
The basic agrarian policy aim of achieving an agriculture capable of sustaining itself
during this Special Period with low petrochemical inputs and without reducing crop sizes
has required a reorganization of the structure of agricultural research and extension and
of the flow of information in Cuba, with less emphasis placed on technologies requiring a
great deal of capital and energy.
The cultural, political and technical preparation of the Cuban people, accumulated
throughout the years of the revolutionary process, proved to be a decisive factor during
the brusque change that took place at the beginning of the '90s and that could not have
been successfully faced by an uncultured people. The search for a new paradigm was also
aided by the scientific-technical results and experiences that had been accumulated by the
country's farmers, technicians and scientists throughout the years of the revolutionary
period.
Thus, the Ministry of Agriculture was able to rapidly introduce the application en masse
of final results as well as others still in initial processes of research or technological
transference in order to attenuate and in other cases satisfactorily solve the effects of the
crisis in our agriculture.
26
Soon, alternatives and solutions began to appear and a new awareness was created little
by little in many basic producers, technicians, researchers, professors and agricultural
leaders, who gradually became convinced of the feasibility of agriculture with another
approach, by means of which productive crops can be obtained economically and in
harmony with the environment and nature, without the contamination of soil, water and
air, and healthy food can be produced without an excessive expenditure of energy and
with a reduced capital investment.
It should not be forgotten that, during the four decades of the Revolution, the country has
been submitted to a cruel blockade by the Government of the United States of America
that attempts to obstruct the implementation of any measure in the economic field. This
blockade has been sharply intensified in the past decade, not only increasing the costs of
importing food but also, on many occasions, making it difficult for the country to acquire
foodstuffs and medicaments.
At the beginning of the '90s, the Urban Agriculture Movement was strengthened. It is a
participative, people's agriculture that uses water economically and favors soil fertility.
This productive movement is by now making an important impact on the nutrition of the
population, ensuring the availability throughout the entire year of fresh produce
uncontaminated by chemicals. From the beginning, this urban agriculture has registered
sustained growth, from the four thousand tons produced in 1994 to four hundred and
eighty thousand tons in 1998, while 1999 is expected to close with six hundred and ninety
thousand tons.
As may be judged from all of the aforementioned, the rapid and total mobilization of the
country's accumulated intelligence and know-how, as well as the massive response of the
population to the emergency situation, avoided what could have been a still deeper crisis
in our agrarian system and the proliferation of hunger in these difficult years.
In a period of approximately four years, the organic agriculture movement has surpassed
all expectations and been extended to all the agricultural sector, involving individual
producers, farm administrators, extension workers, researchers, professors, religious
organizations and state functionaries concerned with agriculture.
In November 1992, a committee, with the participation of diverse organizations and
institutions that had been working until then on alternatives for a change in conventional
agriculture, was created for the purpose of organizing the First National Meetingon
Organic Agriculture, held in May 1993. It was at that meeting that the Promotional Group
of Organic Agriculture initiated its work.
The basic aim of our country's Organic Agriculture Movement, in which this Group has
worked systematically, has been to educate producers, demonstrating to them that
integrally conceived systems of organic agriculture, with a consequent control of all the
elements of sustainability, can produce yields equal or superior to those obtained by highinput technologies.
27
In the last few years, a consciousness-raisingcampaign has been carried out by means of
workshops, field days, lectures at universities and research centers, conferences, scientific
events and participative meetings with producers, as well as by the rotation of mobile
agro-ecological libraries through diverse research and teaching centers, agricultural
cooperatives and other interested organizations. The Group publishes a periodic
specialized magazine and has supported a prestigious course in Agro-ecology, with an
enrollment of over 500 students, at the Agricultural University of Havana.
From its base in Havana, furthermore, the Group has sections operating in a large part of
the national territory, and each member is active within his own work center. The Group's
members carry out constant educational activity related to organic means of agricultural
production, promoting the idea that the common use of organic methods must be
considered a permanent transformation in Cuban agriculture.
In developing its work, the Organic Agriculture Group has had the support of the United
Nations Development Project (UNDP) and other non-government organizations, that
have helped it to carry out a Program of Agro-ecological Lighthouses - model farms on
which the feasibility and efficiency of the methods and technologies of ecological
agriculture are demonstrated and where crop-management is integrated with the concepts
of organic agriculture.
The Agro-ecological Lighthouses project has received funds from the UNDP; from the
German NGO, "Bread for the World" ; from OXFAM America and from Cuban
institutions. The Group has maintained close ties with the Food First Institute of the
United States of America, with which it organizes exchange visits between farmers of the
two countries.
At the same time, it has been working hand-in-hand with several governmental agencies
of the country such as the Ministry of Agriculture and the ministries of Sugar; Education
and Higher Education; Science, Technology and Environment. A strong link is also
maintained with the National Association of Small Farmers for the purpose of ensuring
that the aims of this work are taken into account at the moment of projecting the country's
development policy.
Special mention should be made of the self-sacrificing work of the Organic Agriculture
Group, which has carried on systematic and arduous labor in favor of the development of
agricultural sustainability in these very difficult years for the Cuban nation, in which,
added to the loss of the commercial relations that it had established and built up over
many years, it finds itself constantly more cruelly blockaded by the strongest present-day
world power.
The Organic Agriculture Group carries on its activities within the Association of
Agricultural and Forestry Technicians, an NGO constituted in 1987 and strengthened in
its Congress, held in October 1999. This Association brings together more than 12,000
28
affiliates and has branches in every province of the country, whose missions include
working intensively on behalf of an ever more sustainable and ecological agriculture.
The organic world is facing constantly greater challenges, but it is also receiving the
encouraging and welcome news that "cultivation in the world is constantly more
organic".
Seven years after the speech of our President, Dr. Fidel Castro, before the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development of Rio de Janeiro, his words
maintain total validity. In that speech, he called for: "No more transfers to the Third
World of life styles and consumption habits that ruin the environment. Let us make
human life more rational. Let us apply a fair international economic order. Let us use all
the science necessary for sustainable development without contamination. Let us pay the
ecological debt and not the foreign debt. Let hunger disappearand not man".
The award that has been conferred on us, in addition to being a high honor, fills us with
pleasure for what it represents as a recognition of the efforts of all the men and women
who, during these very difficult years for our people, have made it possible, with the
backing of our government, to exhibit the reality of our organic agriculture before the
distinguished personalities present here today and before the entire world.
We are grateful for the unfailing support of our Government, without which our work
could not have been carried out. We are also grateful to the Right Livelihood Award
Foundation for bestowing this award on us and for the support from the Swedish
Parliament. We extend to you the testimony of our gratitude.
Thank you
GAO
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more information:
Grupo de Agricultura Orgánica (GAO)
Tulipán 1011 e/Loma y 47
Apdo. Postal 6236C
Código Postal 10600, Nuevo Vedado
Ciudad de La Habana
CUBA
Phone: +53 7 845 387
Fax. +53 7 845 387
Email: [email protected]
Right Livelihood Award Administrative Office
P.O. Box 15072
S-104 65 Stockholm
SWEDEN
Tel: +46 (0) 8 702 03 40
Fax: +46 (0) 8 702 03 38
E-Mail: [email protected]
http://www.rightlivelihood.se
29
***
Cuba's Organic Agriculture and Food First Make Top 25 Censored Stories List
Project Censored
July 01, 2001
Cuba has developed one of the most efficient organic agriculture systems in the world,
and organic farmers from other countries are visiting the island to learn the methods.
Due to the U.S. embargo, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was unable to
import chemicals or modern farming machines to uphold a high-tech corporate farming
culture. Cuba needed to find another way to feed its people. The lost buying power for
agricultural imports led to a general diversification within farming on the island. Organic
agriculture has become key to feeding the nation’s growing urban populations.
Cuba's new revolution is founded upon the development of an organic agricultural
system. Peter Rosset of the Institute for Food and Development Policy states that this is
"the largest conversion from conventional agriculture to organic or semi-organic farming
that the world has ever known."
Not only has organic farming been prosperous, but the migration of small farms and
gardens into densely populated urban areas has also played a crucial role in feeding
citizens. State food rations were not enough for Cuban families, so farms began to spring
up all over the country. Havana, home to nearly 20 percent of Cuba's population, is now
also home to more than 8,000 officially recognized gardens, which are in turn cultivated
by more than 30,000 people and cover nearly 30 percent of the available land. The
growing number of gardens might seem to bring up the problem of space and price of
land. However, "the local governments allocate land, which is handed over at no cost as
long as it is used for cultivation," says S. Chaplowe in the Newsletter of the World
Sustainable Agriculture Association.
The removal of the "chemical crutch" has been the most important factor to come out of
the Soviet collapse, trade embargo, and subsequent organic revolution. Though Cuba is
organic by default because it has no means of acquiring pesticides and herbicides, the
quality and quantity of crop yields have increased. This increase is occurring at a lower
cost and with fewer health and environmental side effects than ever. There are 173
established ‘vermicompost’ centers across Cuba, which produce 93,000 tons of natural
compost a year. The agricultural abundance that Cuba is beginning to experience is
disproving the myth that organic farming on a grand scale is inefficient or impractical.
So far Cuba has been successful with its "transformation from conventional, high input,
mono-crop intensive agriculture" to a more diverse and localized farming system that
continues to grow. The country is rapidly moving away from a monoculture of tobacco
and sugar. It now needs much more diversity of food crops as well as regular crop
30
rotation and soil conservation efforts to continue to properly nourish millions of Cuban
citizens.
In June 2000, a group of Iowa farmers, professors, and students traveled to Cuba to view
that country’s approach to sustainable agriculture. Rather than relying on chemical
fertilizers, Cuba relies on organic farming, using compost and worms to fertilize soil.
There are many differences between farming in the United States and Cuba, but "in many
ways they’re ahead of us," say Richard Wrage, of Boone County Iowa Extension Office.
Lorna Michael Butler, Chair of Iowa State University’s sustainable agriculture
department said, "more students should study Cuba’s growing system." (AP 6/5/00)
Note: While two national wire services covered this story, very few newspapers actually
picked it up. The Washington Post, (11/2/00 p. A29), gave an anti-Castro spin to the story
by focusing on community gardens as necessary to off set food shortages and nutritional
problems. The gardens were depicted as contributing only "slightly" to food production
in a socialist agriculture system with problems of "inefficiency and lack of individual
incentives." Nothing was said about the successful transformation of Cuban agriculture to
a mostly organic system.
Third World Resurgence
Spring 2000 Issue #118/119
Title: Cuba's Organic Revolution
Author: Hugh Warwick
Sustainable Times
Fall 1999
Title: Farming With Fidel
Author: Alison Auld
Designer/Builder
August 2000
Title: Cuba's New Revolution
Authors: Stephen Zunes
Corporate media coverage: Gannett, 9/15/99, Dallas Morning News, 1/25/98 p. 35A, The
Economist, 4/24/99, Lewiston Morning Tribune, p. 1A. Associated Press, 6/5/00
Faculty Evaluators: Tony White, Ph.D. and Albert Wahrhaftig, Ph.D.
Student researchers: Bruce Harden, Dana Balicki
31
***
Development-Cuba: Renewable Energy to Light Up the Countryside
June 19, 2001.
HAVANA, Jun 18 (IPS) - The lives of thousands of Cuban farmers and their families are
undergoing a radical change thanks to solar and other renewable sources of energy, since
some isolated rural areas still fall outside the conventional electricity grid, which covers
95 to 96 percent of the population.
Sources with the National Centre of Research on Solar Energy (CIES), located in the city
of Santiago, 967 kms from Havana, announced early this month that some 2,000 rural
schools throughout the country would be equipped with electricity this year, through
photovoltaic panels that use solar energy.
''You can only get there by mule - and that's if the weather's fair. There's no other way,''
René Camacho, a veteran journalist from Santiago who is familiar with the remote
mountainous region of eastern Cuba, told IPS.
Each solar panel accumulates enough energy to run a television set, a VCR and two
lamps - equipment that the schools will receive along with their newfound electricity. The
panels will also generate reserves to be stored up for cloudy days.
Among the schools targetted by a government plan to provide schools with audiovisual
equipment are 128 locales with two or three students, and 21 with just one.
Solar panels will also be installed in some 300 health posts and six hospitals in the
mountains of eastern Cuba, in order to generate power to run freezers and radios, for
example.
CIES experts point out that solar energy has a number of advantages. It does not
generate noise or toxic emissions. The equipment is static, without moving parts, which
makes it highly reliable. In addition, the panels are modular, and can thus be used for
small or large demand for electricity as needed.
The photovoltaic cells, some components of which are manufactured locally, will be
used to provide energy for housing, remote health posts and hospitals, as well as safety
devices like buoys and beacons, says the CIES.
A solar energy plant set up by the CIES with financing from an Austrian nongovernmental organisation (NGO) ''Sol para Cuba'' has brought light to an isolated
community on the eastern part of the island for the past four years.
32
The plant provides electricity for 32 houses and public locales, and makes it possible to
run a 25-inch colour television set, a freezer and a radio cassette recorder at the local
community centre.
The potential for solar energy in this Caribbean island nation of 11 million is estimated
at 5,000 kilocalories per square metre per day.
The capacity for generating electricity from wind - which has already begun to be used,
although to a lesser extent than solar power - is also being studied.
Cuba's first nationally-manufactured wind turbine, with a capacity of 40 kilowatt-hours a
day, was installed in the eastern province of Granma two years ago. The project includes
the installation of four other generators.
And in Turiguanó, in the province of Ciego de Avila, 461 kms from the capital, the
country's first wind park is being installed, with two generators capable of producing 450
kilowatt- hours.
Cuba's wind energy ventures have received donations of equipment from several NGOS
in Germany, Denmark and Spain, which are among the most advanced countries in the
development of ''green'' energy.
A report by the international environmental lobby Greenpeace said wind parks with the
capacity to generate nearly one million megawatts could be installed over the next 20
years, which would already have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by at least 232
million tonnes by 2010.
Consumption of electricity dropped considerably in the mid- 1990s as a consequence of
the hard times that hit Cuba in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and east
European socialist bloc.
But the incipient economic recovery that set in towards the end of the decade drove
consumption back up to 10,600 gigawatt-hours in 1998. (A gigawatt is equal to one
billion watts). Average monthly consumption per household that year stood at 117.7
kilowatt-hours.
Cuba gets most of its energy from hydrocarbons and sugar cane biomass, which is used
by the sugar mills themselves, one of the island's key industries.
The energy potential of sugar cane biomass from a harvest of seven million tonnes is
estimated at around 17 million tonnes of bagasse or waste, equivalent to nearly four
million tonnes of fuel oil. But this year's April to May sugar harvest (some mills were
still working in June) is projected at 3.3 million tonnes, 400,000 tonnes under official
projections. (END/IPS/tra-so/pg/dm/sw/01)
33
***
Cuba Fact Sheet
Under such leaders as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, among others, the Cuban
Revolution burst onto the international scene on January 1, 1959, -- overthrowing the
U.S.-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista -- with a commitment to feed, clothe, house,
educate, employ and provide health care for its entire population, a formerly unrealizable
dream.
History
•
The one component of the Cuban strategy that immediately put them at odds with
the United States was land reform. During the 1800's and early 1900's, U.S.
companies and individuals had bought up large amounts of Cuban land, under
regimes friendly to U.S. interests. The majority of the Cuban people had little or
no say in this process. In 1959 75% of Cuban land was controlled by non-Cubans.
•
The Cuban revolutionary government began to nationalize U.S. property (with an
offer of compensation which was rejected.) The U.S., in retaliation, initiated the
embargo.
•
When the Soviet Union offered to become Cuba's new supporter, and preferential
trading partner, Cuba agreed, thus setting the stage for four decades of enmity and
confrontation between the U.S. and Cuba.
•
In 1989, when the Soviet bloc began to disintegrate, the U.S. moved to normalize
relations with all the communist and formerly communist countries. China, the
largest communist country, was granted "most favored nation" status. The
embargo was even lifted against Vietnam, with whom we had fought a brutal war
in which millions perished.
•
But during this time of normalizing relations, the embargo against Cuba has been
strengthened, first with the Cuba Democracy Act of 1992 which deprived Cuba of
the right to trade with U.S. subsidiaries (at the time, $700 million worth of trade);
then with the Helms Burton Act of 1996, which codified the embargo and
deprived the President of any discretionary power to end any aspect of the
embargo.
•
Whereas formerly, the U.S. justified the embargo on the basis of Cuba's alliance
with the Soviet bloc and support for armed revolution in Latin American and
Africa (none of which pertains today), now the U.S calls for the complete
overthrow of Cuba's (elected) government prior to any negotiation toward a
normalization of relations.
34
•
The U.S. now rationalizes the embargo by claiming that Cuba is the most
egregious violator of human rights in this hemisphere. Respected human rights
organizations, however, have never accused Cuba of the kinds of genocide,
torture, disappearances, maltreatment of children, women and minority
religious/ethnic groups, that go on routinely in countries all over the world with
which the U.S. has perfectly normal, even preferential, relations.
•
Is Cuba a threat to Uv.S. national security? A Center for Defense Information
study notes that Cuba spends in one year on its military what the U.S. spends in
12 hours.
Achievements of the Cuban Revolution
Life expectancy
Infant mortality rate
Literacy
Number of Doctors
1959
60 yrs
64/1000
62%
3,000
1999
Rank in Latin America
76 yrs
#1
7.5/1000
#1
98%
#1
65,000 (1/200)
#1
Cuban Americans
•
Until recently the only voice speaking for the large (one million) Cuban American
immigrant population was the ultra conservative Cuban American National
Foundation (CANF), which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the
coffers of politicians willing to support legislation in support of the embargo. The
day Senator Jesse Helms addressed a luncheon vowing to sponsor the Helms
Burton Act, he received a $75.000 donation. President Clinton received an initial
$300,000 for supporting the Cuba Democracy Act of 1992. CANF has also been
accused of illegally working within the U.S. to assassinate Fidel Castro and
otherwise sabotage Cuban enterprises.
•
Today there are increasing numbers of more moderate voices in the Cuban
American community, lobbying for an end to the embargo, although many fear
for their lives and property due to the aggressive tactics often employed by their
right wing opponents. See Cuban American Alliance Education Fund.
Food and Medicine
•
Through their state-supported agricultural system and ration program for basic
nutrients, Cuba had become the first underdeveloped country in the world to
totally wipe out hunger and malnutrition.
35
•
Cuba's public health system, with its comprehensive family doctor program and
tertiary care facilities that deliver services on a part with the developed world, had
been recommended as a "model for the world" by the World Health Organization.
•
Cuba had wiped out the infectious disease and epidemics that plague other
developing countries. Cubans now suffer and die from the exact same diseases
that afflict persons of the developed world -- primarily heart disease and cancer.
•
Now because of the dissolution of the Soviet bloc, internal inefficiencies and
mostly, the tightening of the U.S. embargo, Cuba's amazing progress in the
provision of food and medicine to her people, is compromised.
•
The U.S embargo is unusually harsh because it includes a ban on sales of food
and medicine to Cuba, not only by U.S. companies, but by foreign companies
selling medicines or equipment with U.S. components.
•
According to the American Association for World Health and the American
Public Health Association, the embargo has caused a significant deterioration in
Cuba's food production and health care sectors including the following problems:
•
The embargo effectively bans Cuba from purchasing nearly one half of the new
world class drugs on the market.
•
Of the 1,300 medications available in Cuba in 1991, physicians now have access
to only 890, and many of these, including drugs for cancer, diabetes, heart disease
and asthma, are available only intermittently.
•
The deterioration of Cuba's water supply has led to a rising incidence of water
borne diseases such as typhoid fever, dysentery and viral hepatitis.
•
The outright ban on the sale of American food- stuffs has contributed to serious
nutritional deficits, particularly among pregnant women, leading to an increase in
low birth weight babies.
•
Daily caloric intake dropped 33 percent between 1989 and 1993.
•
Food shortages were linked to a devastating out- break of neuropathy in 1993-94
affecting the tens of thousands, leaving 200 people permanently blind.
Travel to Cuba
•
The United States, in violation of its own constitution and international law,
maintains travel restrictions against Cuba which prohibit U.S. citizens from
spending money in Cuba in connection with travel, even for socially responsible
and educational purposes, without a special license. Penalties for violating the
restrictions include hefty fines and a long prison term.
36
•
The Freedom to Travel Campaign, a coalition of some fifty organizations across
the U.S., has challenged the Administration on this policy, even bringing a lawsuit
against the policy. The Campaign accuses the U.S. of interfering with the first
amendment rights of U.S. citizens (freedom of speech and association) and with
the right "to know."
•
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in the Treasury Department is
accused of administering the travel regulations in an arbitrary and discriminatory
fashion. OFAC has attempted to bring legal action against U.S. internationalist
organizations such as Global Exchange and Pastors for Peace, for organizing
travel to Cuba for educational and humanitarian purposes.
Sustainable Development
•
Because the embargo hampers their ability to purchase agricultural inputs,
pharmaceuticals and advanced technology for energy and industrial production,
and because they have educated 35,000 scientists who research and develop
alternative technologies in over 200 scientific institutes, Cuba has made some
remarkable progress this decade in the area of sustainable development.
•
Cuba's Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment has said, "One day
we may build a monument to this 'special period' because it has forced us to find
more sustainable and more truly Cuban methods to meet our food, medicine and
energy needs."
•
Cuba is engaged in the most massive conversion from chemical to organic
agriculture any nation has yet attempted.
•
Cuba could meet ALL of its electricity needs utilizing biomass conversion of the
waste products from the sugar cane harvest if it had access to a more sophisticated
technology. Currently the 160 sugar mills produce all their own electricity by
such methods and Cuba has received a UN grant for a pilot study on expanding
electricity production.
•
CubaSolar, an NGO of 400 scientists, has installed solar panels on over 300
family doctor clinics in remote mountainous regions. One village, Magdalena, is
entirely powered by solar energy.
•
Cuba allows its doctors to get advanced certification in natural and alternative
medicine and has identified 60 indigenous herbs with proven medicinal value. In
the last decade it has opened natural medicine clinics in every major city
specializing in herbal treatments, acupuncture, homeopathy and mind-body
medicine.
Recommendations
37
•
The U.S. embargo against Cuba is cruel, anachronistic and counterproductive of
stated U.S. foreign policy goals. Two steps should be taken immediately to end it:
•
Restrictions on the sale and shipping of food and agricultural supplies and of
medicines and medical equipment, should be lifted. In the current Congress,
legislation to this effect is being introduced by Representatives Rangel (D-NY),
Serrano (D-NY) and Leach (R-IA), as well as Senators Dodd (D-CT) and Warner
(R-VA).
•
All restrictions on the rights of U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba for educational
purposes should be lifted. Legislation to this effect has been introduced by
Representative Serrano (D-NY).
•
President Bush should actively work with Congress to pass these bills this year.
38