Cuba and Agroecology: A Potential Model For Barbados - De Plantuh Man

When most people think of Cuba, a country of 11.5 million people and occupying 105,806 square km, ‘agricultural pioneer’ probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. This Spanish speaking country, the largest island nation in the Caribbean, has a had a varied and oftentimes turbulent past which conjures up images of revolution, conflict and cigars. This tumultuous history however, has resulted in a country which has had to find ways to innovate as a means of survival; as the saying goes, smooth seas do not make good sailors. The decades-long trade embargo imposed by the USA has restricted trade between the two countries to just food and “humanitarian” supplies. Despite this or maybe because of these harsh restrictions Cuba has:

Developed its own medicines, including effective anti-cancer and anti-diabetic drugs.
The most doctors per capita in the world with Cubans having the same life expectancy as Americans.
An agricultural model that focuses on agroecological methods, foregoing the use of many pesticides and man-made fertilizers, and small, oftentimes urban or suburban farms which account for upwards of 70% of fresh vegetables consumed in Havana and other cities. This method of agriculture has been so successful that Cubans enjoy the highest per capita average daily energy supply of all Latin American and Caribbean nations.

In this post I will describe what agroecology is, how Cuba has used agroecological principles to, among other things, increase their food sovereignty, protect their environment (including soils) and increase resilience to external factors including natural disasters and climate change.

Agroecology

Agroecology can be defined as the study of the interactions between crops, animals, humans and the environment within an agricultural system. Basically think of agroecology as a holistic approach to agriculture which considers all of the factors that ultimately affect crop yield, sustainability and resilience to natural disasters among other things. Agroecology shares many similarities with permaculture and in fact, it may be accurate to describe permaculture as a subset of agroecology. Like permaculture, agroecology has a strong ‘social movement’ aspect, as humans are ultimately the ones who practise and are most affected by the agricultural techniques and methods used.

In the Cuban context, agroecology has demonstrably increased the efficiency of food production (with respect to inputs required), reduced Cuba’s reliance on food imports and arguably increased the quality of food that the average Cuban eats through the use of organic methods.

Despite this, Cuba wasn’t always a pioneer in agroecological methods. In fact, Cuba was once the largest producer of the monocrop sugar cane which utilized traditional industrial agricultural methods. During this period Cuba relied heavily on imports of food (upwards of 70% of food was imported), primarily from the Soviet Union. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s access to pesticides, fertilizers, heavy farming equipment and ultimately food plummeted, with the average Cuban experiencing a decline in daily caloric intake from 3,052 to 2,099 calories per day (the minimum recommended daily caloric intake is 2100-2300). This desperate situation, known as the Special Period (1991-2000) called for a reevaluation of agriculture in Cuba. The path forward was determined to be the incorporation of agroecological methods with a strong focus on low external inputs, organic methods and a decentralised, community-led approach to agriculture.

How Does it Work?

It is important to remember that these agroecological methods were implemented because of necessity due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which saw a 80% drop in availability of key agricultural inputs. Due to this drastic decrease in the amount of imported man-made fertilizer, Cubans were forced to create their own, locally available fertilizers through conventional composting, but also more importantly through vermiculture. Vermiculture is the process by which worms are used to breakdown organic matter into vermicompost, a complex and nutrient rich media which acts as an excellent fertilizer and soil amendment. You can read more about vermiculture in Cuba here.

Access to synthetic pesticides also decreased after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Cuban’s addressed this problem by implementing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies. IPM utilizes a holistic approach to reduce pest populations through considering pest and environmental factors to select pest control methods which are the most economical and least damaging to the environment and people. Biological pest control is one such control method which uses another organism, that is, the natural enemy of the pest, to reduce pest populations. Cuba has used many such methods including Trichogramma wasps which parasitize the eggs of many insect pests including moths and beetles. These biological agents are created and dispersed, through a decentralised system of artisanal labs (called CREEs) located across the country. These biological agents are provided to state farms, private farms and collectives and are free of charge to the farm collective where the lab is located. Read more about the very interesting Integrated Pest Management systems used in Cuba here.

One of the principles of agroecology is to consider the human element in the whole agricultural process. Because of this, adaption of agroecology in Cuba really proliferated through a series of initiatives which:

Disseminated agroecological techniques and practices among farmers and between farmers and governmental organisations. The methodologies of the El Movimiento Campesino a Campesino or Farmer to Farmer movement, was adopted by Cubans to form the Campesino-to-Campesino Agroecology Movement (MACAC). Through the MACAC, farmers were able to transmit useful information about agroecological techniques between one another to construct collective “best practices” to suit each specific farmer’s need.
Making unused state lands available to farmers, including in urban spaces
Through governmental and state companies distributing inputs and services to farmers, thereby acting as a facilitator rather than director of agriculture carried out by farmers.

What Has it Achieved?

Agroecology saved Cuba from the deleterious effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union by producing food with, first and foremost, minimal external inputs. Subsequent expansion of these techniques have resulted in:

A decrease in total food imports which now lies at 16%.
A reduction in agri-chemical use of between 44% to 72% for tubers, vegetables and beans.
An increase in the production of vegetables, tubers and beans of between 83% to 351%.
An increase in resilience to natural disasters. Farms using agroecological techniques experienced 30%-60% in initial damage as a result of a hurricane, which was lower than the average of 70% for all farms.

On an agroecological farm, if one thing doesn’t make it, another one will. There’s always something to eat. It doesn’t matter what happens.

— Nini, agroecological farmer

What Can Barbados Learn?

90% of all food consumed in Barbados is imported. This figure is astronomically high and is not only a huge economic burden but it also leaves us extremely vulnerable to disruptions in food supply through, for example, conflicts, natural disasters and global climate change. Food sovereignty, that is the reduced reliance on imported food, has been placed as a priority by the Mia Mottley administration. The agroecological methods used in Cuba have demonstrably shown to be successful and what’s more, successful in an environmental context that is similar to Barbados. The government’s Farmers’ Empowerment and Enfranchisement Drive (FEED) is promising step in the direction of increasing our domestic agricultural output. As per the programme website: “Farmers coming onto the programme will establish their enterprise on leased lands ranging from one quarter of an acre to five acres. Land allocations will depend on the type of farming activity of the farmer. These lands will be leased at a rate of $300 per acre annually. Irrigation water will also be provided at a subsidized rate in most cases.” This programme is also expected to “accommodate persons with a desire to establish agricultural enterprises in a variety of farming systems”