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 View as Flat
Erik Hoffner Posted 6:52 am
10 Jun 2008
Power of Community
The story of Cuba's permaculturish revolution is captured well by this documentary:
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
A model society?
Great, Gristmill now thinks that Communist Cuba is a model society whose example we should emulate.
Charles Barton
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PermieWriter Posted 8:59 am
10 Jun 2008
Cuban sandwiches
It is impressive how Cubans managed to avoid starving when the hammer of a political peak oil came down. I've seen "The Power of Community" and spoken with people who have traveled in Cuba. It's been very hard and people lost a lot of weight - many died of starvation. There were, of course since it's humans we're talking about, political factors that made these changes more difficult. But they dug in and planted gardens and made it happen. This is much-needed proof that post-industrial people can, in fact, feed themselves.
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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WWAGD?! Posted 10:30 am
10 Jun 2008
Es calidad!
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. ...
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Craig Allen Posted 11:05 am
10 Jun 2008
Cubans do many things well
They have a much better health system than the US and rather than armies they export thousands of medical practitioners to third world countries. You could do worse than model yourself on some of their better characteristics.
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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WWAGD?! Posted 2:35 pm
10 Jun 2008
Health versus Health Care
racc Posted 3:46 pm
10 Jun 2008
We Have a Lot to Learn
We have a lot to learn from the rest of the world. Sure, Cuba is far from perfect, but lets not be so arrogant to think they don't have anything to offer.We have society that has been completely built around cheap energy and resources. Now that both are gone, we have start over again almost from scratch. We are so far behind the rest of the world. The sad thing is we still don't know it.
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MattThaKing Posted 3:47 pm
10 Jun 2008
¡De pinga asere, pero ya tú sabes, no es fácil!
I actually lived in La Habana for four months on a study abroad program through Harvard, and while my focus there wasn't on urban agriculture I lived just a few blocks away from one of the many urban farms. The Cuban agriculture system is truly amazing as they managed to recoup around 1,000 calories in the Cuban diet after the fall of the USSR (went from around 1500-1600 per person per day in 1994 to 2,500 or so by 2000), much of it through fruit and vegetables, much of it organic, and much of it local and non-mechanized, though a lot of it from imports. I just want to point out a few issues with idealizing the Cuban agriculture system. Firstly, you fail to mention here the fact noted in the CBS article that 80% of Cuba's food is imported. The United States is actually the nation's largest current agricultural trading partner for the past 5 years. In 2000 Congress passed the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TSRA) due to heavy lobbying by the agricultural sector. Cuba didn't actually start buying from us until 2001 since they were so insulted by the fact that the US demanded that everything be paid in cash up front, but after Hurricane Michelle ravaged the island in 2001 they decided to start and have been buying about $350 million dollars worth of food from the US since (mostly wheat, corn, soy, chicken, and powdered milk, but also processed foods like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and Heinz ketchup). And that's only about ¼ of their total food imports. This shows that while the urban farm system has definitely increased access to fresh produce, it is by no means a cure-all. Cuba just doesn't have the hydrological resources or climate to grow certain staple products, and I'm sorry, but not everyone can be a fruitarian.
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
Para que sepas
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I was there last spring (2007). Also I forgot to mention that the people have no political freedom (Raul is changing that poco a poco, but we'll see how far he takes it), poverty is still ubiquitous, their economy anemic and increasing inequally distributed and dependent on tourism (which will disappear with the end of cheap oil). Our group was definitely monitored and one of the security guards at our complex was fired because he had, according to the government document he showed us, "forged unacceptable relationships with foreigners" (i.e. he was friendly with us and sometimes pestered us to use our computers to burn him porn, but we damn well didn't rat him out).
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PermieWriter Posted 7:37 am
11 Jun 2008
Cuba's example
Nobody has all the answers. I think the best inspiration we can take from Cuba is to actually tackle the problems that come with Peak Oil instead of dodging them.
Eat what you grow, grow what you eat
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Wolverine Posted 8:10 am
11 Jun 2008
Two Things Wrong With This Column
"a less-than-ideal diet of rice and beans and canned goods from Eastern Europe"?
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
Rice and beans, beans and rice
I know a guy who lived for a summer on rice and beans plus some ground rodents he hunted (a pest at the ranch where he was living). This was during a period of great stoic asceticism in his life. He doesn't recommend it unless you need to for a little while as a retreat and focussing exercise. And not as a lifestyle.
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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