FARM MOVEMENTS ARE CHANGING THE WORLD NOW

CUBAN FARM MOVEMENT

When motion becomes a movement, it’s a beautiful thing.

The Cuban Farm Movement is the other Cuban Revolution worth knowing about. It is known as the “Agroecology Revolution.”

Cuba used to be all about sugar, rum, and cigars… and it almost sunk the country. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Cuba had become dependent on monocultures of sugar and tobacco production. Sugar, rum and cigars were shipped to the Soviet bloc in exchange for food, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and oil.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1989, it pulled out of Cuba, leaving an enormous economic vacuum. It dealt a heavy blow to the Cuban agricultural industry and food supply. The caloric intake of the average Cuban fell by about half, with the average person losing 10-20 lbs. during this time of crisis, known as the “Special Period.”

Necessity became the mother of invention. As an unexpected benefit of this food crisis, the Cuban Organic Farm Movement was born.

Animals and manpower replaced tractors. Organic compost and natural pest management replaced chemical-based practices. Closed-loop permaculture principles, including crop rotation, rainwater capture, and other organic methods, helped Cuba to develop a new self-reliance and a healthier food supply for its people.

In 1992, the Cuban Association for Organic Agriculture (ACAO), led by Fernando Funes, Sr. and Maria del Carmen Pérez, was formed at the Higher Institute for Agricultural Science of Havana (ISCAH).

ACAO was instrumental in helping to promote agro-ecology which helped to feed the Cuban people in a healthier, more sustainable way. As a result of its widespread activities, ACAO was honored with the Right Livelihood Award (aka Alternative Nobel Prize) by the Swedish Parliament in 1999.

Funes’ son, Fernando R. Funes-Monzote, a founding member of the Cuban Organic Agriculture Movement, is an agronomist and researcher at the University of Matanzas.

Funes-Monzote’s experimental farm, La Finca Marta, is a working laboratory for sustainable agriculture, where he has developed and employed innovations such as a vertical reservoir that supplies groundwater to the house and fields, a solar-powered water pump, a roof that captures and channels 300,000 liters of rainwater annually, and a biodigester that converts animal waste into electricity and fertilizer.

The farm produces over 30 types of vegetables, fruit, and honey for 16 paladares, Cuba’s newly established privately owned restaurants -- Cuba's own farm-to-table movement.

In an interview with Democracy Now!, Funes-Monzote explains, “With organic agriculture, with agroecology, we are able to produce healthy food in order to grow healthy people in the cities and in the whole country.” Watch this video report from La Finca Marta, produced by Democracy Now!'s Karen Ranucci, with whom we traveled, and Monica Melamid.

The Urban Farming Movement has also helped the Cuban people tremendously. Long before urban farming became trendy in US cities, out of sheer necessity, clever resourcefulness, and creativity, Cuban city-dwellers became guerrilla gardeners. They began to grow food in whatever spaces they could -- from balconies, to vacant lots, to roadside strips, to rooftops.

From fruits and veggies, to backyard chickens, to beehives, these urban spaces have yielded beautiful harvests. They have begun to transform the lives of the Cuban people, both nuttritionally, and economically. One breeder in Havana, for example, raises guinea pigs, chickens, turkeys, and over a hundred rabbits, on one 68 square meter rooftop, which he supplies to neighborhood butchers and restaurants.

Once the Cuban government took notice of the new urban farm success, they began to support the movement, offering seed, supplies, and knowledge. They also issued 13-hectare plots of land to farmers within 10 miles of city centers.

Now, Cuba has more than 380,000 urban farms, covering roughly 100,000 acres of otherwise unused or marginal land. They produce over 1.5 million tons of food each year — roughly 70% of what city residents consume.

While, some figures show 50 - 80% of Cuba’s food is still imported, thanks to Cuba’s Farm Movement the island has transformed from the lowest per capita food producer in Latin America and the Caribbean, to its most prolific.

[Farming Cuba: Urban Agriculture From the Ground Up](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1616892005/ref=aslitl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1616892005&linkCode=as2&tag=beauti064-20&linkId=U5TPXVB5URTKQJMK) , by Carey Clouse, is another excellent resource for more information, images, and insights into Cuba’s Farm Movement. Clouse teaches architecture and urbanism at UMass Amherst and is a partner at Crooked Works, a firm addressing the intersection between architecture and sustainability.

How will Cuban agriculture be affected once the US trade embargo is lifted and industrial agriculture-related companies try to enter their market? We are hoping that the urban and organic farm movements will be able to hold their own. And we hope the rest of the world can join the movement on their own turf.

 

Read more about Beautiful Motion, as it relates to  Arts/Design,Nature/Science,Food/Drink, Place/Time,Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including The Art of Motion Now.

IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by lezumbalaberenjena. Campos de tabaco en Vega de Palma, en Camajuaní, provincia Villa Clara, Cuba.
2. Image: mary abq. Farming.
3. Image: Courtesy of Voices of Transition. Cooperative Alamar, Cuba.
4. Image: Courtesy of DPJdeVacaciones. Organoponico Vivero Alamar.
5. Image: by Rachel Southmayd  Courtesy of Pulitzer Center. Organoponico Vivero Alamar.
6. Image: by Grant MacPherson. Courtesy of The Veg Less Traveled. Organic Urban Farming in Habana, Cuba.
7. Image: by Grant MacPherson. Courtesy of The Veg Less Traveled. Organic Urban Farming in Habana, Cuba.
8. Image: Courtesy of Mi Viaje Cubano. Pottery.
9. Image: Courtesy of The Farm Between. Agroecological vegetable production and entrepreneurship at Finca Marta, Cuba.
10. Image: by Russel Fernandez. Courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press. Farming Cuba: Urban Agriculture from the Ground Up.
11. Image: Courtesy of Democracy Now! Still from Organic Farming Flourishes in Cuba.
12. Image: by Andrew Cook. Courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press. Farming Cuba: Urban Agriculture from the Ground Up.
13. Image: by Andrew Cook. Courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press. Farming Cuba: Urban Agriculture from the Ground Up.
14. Image: Courtesy of International Center for Tropical Agriculture. Agroecology in Cuba.
15. Image: by Grant MacPherson. Courtesy of The Veg Less Traveled. Organic Urban Farming in Habana, Cuba.
16. Image: by Grant MacPherson. Courtesy of The Veg Less Traveled. Organic Urban Farming in Habana, Cuba.
17. Image: Courtesy of Cityodat. Organic Urban Farming in Habana, Cuba.
18. Image: Courtesy of BeautifulNow. BN App.
19. Image: Courtesy of The Cuban Economy. Driving the Cart past a Marabu Woods.