The story is legendary in peak-oil circles: Twenty years ago, the Soviet Union pulled the plug on Cuba's cheap-energy, cheap-food era. (See Bill McKibben's feature piece on the subject here.) No longer would the fading superpower accept the tiny island nation's sugar as payment for crude oil. From then on, only hard currency would do. It also halted food aid. In short order, gas and food prices spiked and people's living standards tumbled. Next, a widespread shift from cars to bikes, and an explosion in community gardening.
Recently, as our own cheap-energy era appears to be lurching toward its end, the mainstream media have caught wind of the Cuban miracle. Associated Press:
Cuba's urban farming program has been a stunning, and surprising, success. The farms, many of them on tiny plots ... now supply much of Cuba's vegetables. They also provide 350,000 jobs nationwide with relatively high pay and have transformed eating habits in a nation accustomed to a less-than-ideal diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe.
Note that what's happening here is something I'm always talking about: small-scale agriculture as not only producer of a diverse food supply, but also as economic engine. And here is CBS News:
Lucky are the Havana residents who live near the organoponico at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue. Occupying nearly an entire city block, it grows a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, and herbs, as well as ornamental plants. It will even sell fresh basil shoots for customers to plant in their own herb garden. On a recent day, customers were offered the following fresh produce at reasonable prices: mangos, plantains, basil, parsley, lettuce, garlic, celery, scallions, collard greens, black beans, watermelon, tomatoes, malanga, spinach, and sweet potatoes.
Luckily for Cubans in general, organic here is not equivalent to expensive. Overhead costs are low. The produce is sold from simple aluminum kiosks, signs listing the day's offer and prices are handmade, electricity is used only for irrigation, and no transportation other than walking from the raised beds to the kiosks is involved. The result? Everything is fresh, local and available.
CBS reports that of Cuba's 11 million people, 300,000 directly work in organic farming. That's 2.7 percent. In the United States, fewer than 2 percent work in farming at all, and only a tiny fraction are organic.
The AP article focuses on a woman who, pre-crisis, had a "solidly middle-class existence" as a research biologist. Now she -- quite happily, it seems -- scratches out a living as an urban farmer on a half-acre lot.
Neighbors are happy with cheap vegetables fresh from the field. Bouza never lacks for fresh produce, and she pulls in between $100 to $250 a month -- many times the average government salary of $19.
Of course, on $100-250 a month, you're not going to be ponying up for the newest iPhone or jetting off on vacations. For this woman, farming represents a welcome increase in her standard of living: access to fresh, healthy food, and a comparatively good wage.
In other words, consumer capitalism and the Cuban model don't mix. And indeed, the Cuban government's embrace of small-scale, neighborhood-level entrepreneurial agriculture may yet prove short-lived. Just last month, government officials announced a partnership with the government of Brazil -- the globe's emerging industrial-agriculture powerhouse -- to begin growing soybeans on an industrial scale on the island.
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Comments
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Erik Hoffner Posted 6:52 am
10 Jun 2008
http://www.powerofcommunity.org
Highly recommended.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Charles Barton Posted 8:10 am
10 Jun 2008
Charles Barton
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PermieWriter Posted 8:59 am
10 Jun 2008
I don't think that anyone (anyone would would be taken seriously, anyway) is suggesting that America take up a hereditary communist dictatorship. But Cuba's hardworking example of self-sufficiently, externally exposed as it may have been, should be inspiring to anyone who appreciates the perils of peak oil. Anyone denying those perils should feel free to starve for their principles.
Eat what you grow, grow what you eat
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:30 am
10 Jun 2008
Wow, the US can be just like Cuba. Growing all our food year round in flower boxes outside the apartment. Like right now, here in Kent, WA the temperature in June is like...oh, 55F and dropping...so I could grow...what? Wheat? A pumpkin? Winter squash?
http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Americas/Cuba-CLIMATE. ...
Except in the mountains, the climate of Cuba is semitropical or temperate. The average minimum temperature is 21°C (70° F), the average maximum 27°C (81° F). The mean temperature at Havana is about 25°C (77°F). The trade winds and sea breezes make coastal areas more habitable than temperature alone would indicate.
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Craig Allen Posted 11:05 am
10 Jun 2008
Their current political system leaves something to be desired, but that of the US is far from being a model of well functioning democracy from the point of view of anyone living outside the US fantasy bubble. And at least Cuba doesn't have a leader who is reviled and regarded with contempt world-wide.
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:35 pm
10 Jun 2008
They have a much better health system than the US and rather than armies they export thousands of medical practitioners to third world countries</blocqkuote>
No...what Cuba has is much better "Health" not Health Care. If you live in a climate with 70-80F range temperatures, with sea breezes, you are going to be healthier...period.
In effect, what is being advocated here is Global Warming. If and when real Global Warming were ever to occur, and suddenly Seattle was 70F-80F all year round, then yes, it would be a paradise.
And another thing -- back in 1830, was Cuba like 50 degrees or what? How come Cuba isn't 150F every day?
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racc Posted 3:46 pm
10 Jun 2008
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MattThaKing Posted 3:47 pm
10 Jun 2008
With regards to your comment on the salary of these urban farmers, you need to make clear that the average salary of between $15 and $20 dollars a month is what is paid to workers officially by the government. It is absolutely impossible for even the most thrifty Cuban to survive on that and so you have the phenomenon of Cuban's stealing from their jobs or having second, third, or fourth jobs to make extra cash "por la izquierda" (lit. on the left, but translates best as on the side). Most jobs only require the employee to work two 36 hour shifts per week so there is ample time to "resolver" (find other sources of money), as the handyman at our apartment complex would say, "I'm done working for Fidel for today, now I'm going to work for myself and my kids" as he went to his workshop to make furniture and other odds and ends to sell to friends. I talked to the farmers and they work about 5 days per week, so the average Cuban's real salary may be a lot closer to that $100-250 dollars per month for urban farmers cited by CBS.
The Cuban agricultural story may be appealing to greens, and it should be, we absolutely have a lot to learn from them. Yet you should not make the mistake of saying that it is a silver bullet. Peak oil is a scary reality looming ahead of us and will require a lot more than urban gardening, especially since as some others have pointed out many place in the world don't have the climate or soil structure to make it possible on the Cuban scale.
Check this out:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/cuba/CubaSituation0308.pdf
PS You guys aren't hiring staff writers are you?
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MattThaKing Posted 3:54 pm
10 Jun 2008
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PermieWriter Posted 7:37 am
11 Jun 2008
Eat what you grow, grow what you eat
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Wolverine Posted 8:10 am
11 Jun 2008
Excuse me, but using rice and beans for protein IS an ideal way to get protein and carbohydrates, especially if the rice is not white (black or brown, and wild "rice," which is actually another distinct grain, are what you want). This is both a healthier way to generally get protein and much a much less environmentally destructive method than getting relying on meat for protein.
"Of course, on $100-250 a month, you're not going to be ponying up for the newest iPhone or jetting off on vacations."
Good! Those things both cause significant environmental harm. Live simply so that others may simply live, especially non-humans.
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PermieWriter Posted 4:23 am
13 Jun 2008
There's only so many ways you can cook rice and beans. And no one should have to eat canned food from Eastern Europe. People need fruit, nuts, greens and lots of other variety besides their grains and legumes, even if they're not going to eat animal flesh.
We're not going to convince people to save the world by espousing simplicity. As McDonough says, people want life, they want sex, they want variety, they want children.
A McDonough koan: How many cherry blossoms does it take?
Eat what you grow, grow what you eat
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