by Hal Hamilton

— March 24, 2003–

I recently returned from a research trip that challenged all conventional assumptions about progress and feeding the world.

Usually conversations about agricultural productivity begin with the Green Revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. During those years farmers of rice, wheat and a few other globally traded crops increased their yields with new seeds and chemicals. Green Revolution promoters now trumpet genetic engineering as a new stage of global progress. These same promoters frequently disdain organic and sustainable methods as “low yield” and incapable of feeding a growing population.

High-tech chemical-intensive methods characterized Cuba’s agriculture until 1990. I walked around a Cuban dairy farm with the manager who described his past practice of applying three-times more nitrogen to his pasture fields than the amount Iowa farmers apply to their corn fields. But transition came to Cuba in the form of disaster. Their agriculture was forced to shift when Soviet block countries collapsed and the US embargo was tightened. Food supplies plummeted and the average caloric intake of Cubans dropped below minimum standards.

Without fertilizer and pesticides, Cubans turned to organic methods. Without machinery parts, Cubans turned to oxen. Without transport, Cubans started growing food just about everywhere: in vacant lots, school playgrounds, patios and back yards.

I had read, as you may have, articles about Cuban farming that read something like, “Gee whiz, isn’t it fascinating that Cuba has gone organic!” I’m not much of a gee-whiz person. I’m pretty skeptical of success stories because they usually have some sort of hidden subsidy behind them, and they usually fall apart after a while.

I had also read about political repression of dissidents and the lack of decent jobs. Driving into Havana from the airport one can’t miss the smoke-belching cars and the bleakness of deteriorating buildings and crumbling concrete.

But then the magic starts to show. I’m going to pretty much stick to the food system in this article, but first I have to at least mention a few other observations: the stunningly beautiful old part of Havana, puppet shows in the street, outdoor galleries of paintings, and pervasive music mixed with dance from cultural traditions that run far deeper than my own Anglo-Saxon roots.

Cuba is a small island containing extraordinary contrasts: political authoritarianism and community vitality, very poor people with a middle-class culture, few jobs for educated professionals along with one of the very best health care and education systems in Latin America. Doctors earn less than street-sweepers, but the Cuban infant mortality rate is lower than that of the United States.

Cuba’s agriculture is also full of contrasts. A senior professor at the Agrarian University of Havana described how, when he received his agronomy degree, Fidel Castro personally gave each graduate a copy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a seminal work for the environmental movement. This was in 1963, just as Cuba was beginning to wholeheartedly adopt the high-chemical intensely mechanized Green Revolution.

This first green revolution lasted as long as its chemical and mechanical inputs were available. Now Cuba’s scientists and farmers are pioneering an ecological green revolution, one with far fewer synthetic or fossil fuel inputs, and far more inputs of human ingenuity. During the initial period of “withdrawal,” yields of most food crops were low, but now yields have surpassed the highest previous averages.

This transition of Cuban agriculture is characterized by not only different methods but also different ownership patterns. Most state farms have been broken up into individual and cooperative farms, and a large portion of the daily Cuban diet is grown close to home, on small farms and gardens dispersed through and around the cities.

Food markets and distribution outlets are confusing to sort out. The Cuban government still buys a lot of food and guarantees every person a basic diet at very low, subsidized prices, including the guarantee, for example, of a liter of milk per day to every child, even during the very worst years of economic transition. All vegetable farms of significant scale supply schools, daycare centers, and hospitals with low-priced produce.

In addition to these regulated channels, however, many food items are also available on a free market, making food ever more abundant, and returning to farmers among the very highest incomes in Cuba.

Once food production spontaneously evolved toward decentralized, market oriented, organic production, the government began coordinating and supporting further progress. Virtually all university research in agriculture is oriented to helping solve practical questions. Small manufacturing plants dispersed around the island turn out biological pest control supplies and small-scale agricultural tools. Every square mile in Cuba has someone charged with scouting for pests and diseases.

Although North Americans are much richer in material goods than Cubans, there is a lot we can learn from them. We may not like some of the behaviors of their leaders. I don’t. But we can be really proud of these neighbors of ours who have tackled problems of hunger and sustainability with extraordinary success.

Green revolution promoters who are more concerned with feeding people than peddling technologies should go get some insights from one of the most fascinating farming experiments in the world.

© Sustainability Institute